Noble Reason and Reckless Delights
by always-this-serious
Summary: Ever held by his wife's grave, Byakuya never imagined that falling in love again would be quite so easy and so very reckless.
1. Captain

Chapter 1  
Captain

As Soul Society settled back into an old routine, the verdict of Aizen's trial having been announced and a certain amount of peace restored, Shunsui couldn't help but wonder if there was a way for things to have turned out differently.

It had taken excessive manpower to defeat Aizen and his Espada; if there had been one more captain on their side, just the slightest ounce of extra strength and talent, perhaps they wouldn't have suffered such casualties. Maybe even gained more of an advantage. Kiyuku-chan, his third seat, had been pestering him since the very beginning of Aizen's betrayal to recommend her for one of the captain positions. He'd put it off over and over again. There was too much paperwork involved for the time being. He'd told himself that it was just too much of a hassle with everything else that was on his plate.

Frankly, Shunsui was surprised by his laxness. Even though she was young, Kiyuku-chan was an exceptional Shinigami. Her marks at the Academy had been outstanding, and as a third seat she did an impeccable job. Her Bankai was rather marvelous too – she had conquered it completely on her own, though he had spent quite some time helping her refine it. Importantly, she was also rather pretty.

Of course, he had _started _the admin for a recommendation – signatures from another five captains, motivations – but admin had never been one of his strengths. Even so, however, Shunsui had to acknowledge that he should have addressed the issue with more urgency. It was only after Kiyuku-chan had stormed his private quarters with a vicious and unwavering sense of confidence that he'd actually gotten around to finishing the process.

Or, at least, to almost finishing the process before Kiyuku-chan decided to take the Captain's Proficiency Test instead. He was disappointed by not having been selected as a witness – that honour had gone to Joushiro and Sui-Feng – but from the former he'd heard that it had gone exquisitely.

Now they were all gathered in the main hall, an air of expectancy hovering amongst them. Sharp, subtle, like glass, unmentioned but distinct. Though Kiyuku-chan wasn't exactly rising out of obscurity, she also wasn't particularly well-known by most of the captains. Serious, timid, constantly engrossed by something other than other people, she went about her business and spoke when spoken to. Thus, being new and unfamiliar, there was a subdued excitement over her, ever accompanied by an irksome uncertainty – especially after the whole fiasco that had followed with Amagai.

The Captain-Commander began, undemonstrative as always, "Considering the circumstances currently faced by the Gotei 13, it has been our highest priority to fill the positions left empty. Four days ago, Captain Kyoraku Shunsui from the eighth squad nominated his third seat for the position. Following successful testing by myself and two other captains present here, Aramiya Kiyuku has been selected as the new captain for the fifth squad."

She stepped through the doorway, tiny in the whiteness of her haori and equally as pale; paler still against the shock of her short-cropped, red hair. Resolute as she was, her nerves were palpable, clear in the slight shiver of her shoulders and the flush of her cheeks.

"I am Aramiya Kiyuku," she said, voice girlish and darling. "It's an honour."

Before taking her place between the rest of them, Kiyuku-chan glanced at Shunsui. He offered her a proud grin, a wink, and was presented with a tight-lipped smile in return. Next to Komamura, she seemed comically small and comically aware of it, straightening her back ever more against the immensity of his shadow. Apart from her childlike stature, though, she fit well with the other solemn faces and white-clad figures.

There were brief congratulations after the meeting, to which Kiyuku-chan offered nods and polished thanks. Joushiro complimented her skill and sophistication. Unohana invited her to the next gathering of the Shinigami Women's Association. For the most part, everyone else had some business to attend to; as such, it wasn't long before Shunsui got the chance to pass on his good wishes. She hadn't been his third-seat for too long, obviously having seen it as a quick stepping stone towards a much larger mountain, but after some intensive hours of training and shameless – fruitless – charming, Shunsui had grown fond of her. As fond as he grew of each of his subordinates, of course.

"You must be thrilled!" he said, patting her shoulder. "Well done, Kiyuku-chan. You deserve it."

Looking up at him, flushed and excitable, she replied, "Thank you, _taichou_. It's a tremendous privilege – I couldn't have done it without all your help though."

"Why, it was my pleasure – anything for a lovely young lady like yourself."

"There's no need for you to say that."

"There's also no need for you to address me as _taichou _anymore. Remember, we're equals now."

A smile, like that of a girl in her newest fancy dress – Shunsui would have thought it natural and lovely if Kiyuku-chan held out her captain's haori and did a twirl. She didn't but was certainly delighted enough to have done so, wide-eyed and beaming.

"Anyway, I ought to be heading on now. No rest for the wicked. When will you be moving over to your new barracks? You must be all ready and packed…"

"Actually, I've already moved everything over," Kiyuku-chan said proudly. "I didn't have a lot."

Shunsui chuckled. "Of course. I wouldn't expect anything less from you. Well then – let me know if you need any help settling in."

"Thank you, _taichou_."

He had started for the gardens – it was a warm, golden afternoon and a stroll was in order – but took a moment to look back over his shoulder. "Oh, Kiyuku-chan, try not to be so nervous at the next captain's meeting. You should know that most of us don't bite."


	2. Cookies

Chapter 2  
Cookies

It was only much later into the evening that Kiyuku returned to her new room. There'd been a meeting with the fifth squad's seated officers in the afternoon, a small farewell with Nanao and some others later on – drinks, snacks, then they'd all gone their separate ways. It had been pleasant. It had been straightforward and comfortably occupied by small talk. Though she liked the other girls in the eighth squad well enough, Kiyuku was never fully at ease in their friendly company. To be professional was much simpler. More socially-contained and easily navigated. She didn't have many friends. She didn't really have any, but until that point she hadn't felt the need for friendships. At times it may have seemed nice, but Kiyuku was otherwise too preoccupied with becoming a captain.

A dull glimpse of moonlight from the open window spilled over the floor, across a mess of papers that had been blown from the desk – papers which had been piled painstakingly into categories, just about colour-coded and alphabetized. Papers that needed signing. Papers that needed stamping. Papers. Papers. Papers.

Kiyuku, aching after the bustle and rush of the day, set about gathering them up once again. She didn't bother to turn on the light; she would reorder them all in the morning. In the darkness, though, the room seemed much larger than it had before. Larger, and even emptier. A bed, a desk, a rack of barren shelves. It would take more than some photo frames and letter boxes to exorcise the excessive minimalism. A few houseplants wouldn't hurt either.

A knock. Kiyuku yelped, papers dropping from her hands.

Hinamori was at the door, still and staring.

"Aramiya-taichou! Sorry – I didn't mean to startle you!" she declared. "Why are you in the dark? Can I turn on the light?"

She didn't wait for Kiyuku to respond. However, when the new illumination revealed the latter on all fours, Hinamori let out a surprised gasp. "Oh! Let me help you with that."

"N-no, that's really okay," Kiyuku tried to object, but Hinamori had already set aside the parcel she'd been carrying to collect papers.

"I'm happy to," she smiled, and in the seconds it took to return the documents and letters and articles to the desk, the two of them assumed a busy silence.

On occasion, Kiyuku had accompanied the lieutenants on missions. Never anything too important, but it had been exciting for her nonetheless; she'd liked the feeling of being one of them. It was one step closer to being a captain, she'd thought. A third-seat, then a lieutenant, then a captain. Hinamori had always been sweet and eager to help – Kiyuku hadn't needed it much, but either way the offer was always there. Mostly it was irritating, but it was also charming. Even now, with something as insignificant as scattered papers, it was Hinamori to the rescue.

After having thanked her, glancing with restrained gratitude at the tidiness with which Hinamori had stacked everything, Kiyuku raised an eyebrow. "Is there anything I can do for you? I hope it's nothing too serious that you wanted to come here so late." She said this, knowing full-well that it wasn't particularly late at all – perhaps only a little past nine thirty. However, on a typical day, Kiyuku was used to being in bed by eight.

"I'm sorry to have bothered you, Aramiya-taichou. I just wanted to welcome you to the fifth squad and to bring you these…" Hinamori picked up the parcel, a paper box tied with twine, and handed it to Kiyuku. "They're very popular with the lieutenants. I hope that you'll like them."

Inside, cookies were nested snugly in between pieces of turquoise tissue, smelling of warmth and butter. Nanao sometimes had these in her office. From time to time, Kiyuku had snatched a handful or two for herself to enjoy shamelessly over tea and work.

"It's no bother at all, Hinamori-san! This is very sweet," she squeaked. "Nanao-san has told me that you make these yourself."

Hinamori blushed. "Yes. I like to bake sometimes."

"You're very good at it."

A giggle. "Thank you, taichou."

"It's kind of you to be so welcoming," Kiyuku said. "I know this must be difficult for you."

Slowly, an unconscious movement, Hinamori lifted her hand to her chest. There was a greying in her features, a downward curve in her lips – yet, somehow, she continued to smile. "It _is _hard. All of us in the fifth squad felt a huge loss when… Um, when everything happened. But we're also very happy, taichou."

"Happy?"

"Everyone has had good things to say about you. We're all happy that you've been chosen as our new captain."

An iron grip closed itself around Kiyuku's neck. She held her breath, lost for a moment in the genuine feeling in Hinamori's eyes, until finally she could smile back. "That makes _me _very happy. I hope that I can live up to the standard you've set here – I'll do my best to."

Hinamori seemed pleased with this and, giving a quick bow, said goodnight.

Out of an unusual sense of superstition, Kiyuku hadn't told her family about the new position yet. While it was pretty much a done-deal after having passed the Proficiency Test, there'd still been much too much opportunity for something to go wrong, for her chance at captain to fall through. Now, however, with everything settled and done, she went the next day to visit her parents, bringing along the cookies from Hinamori – not that there were very many left, since Kiyuku had a voracious appetite for snacks and so had already tucked into them. Something of a genetic tendency she'd inherited from her father.

He'd been one of the wise men in the Central 46 for many years – well liked, well respected, well trusted – but had resigned with royal permission soon after Kiyuku was born. She saw this as the primary temporal marker, though really it all happened after their grandfather passed and her father stepped up as the 25th head of the Aramiya Family. They didn't talk about it much. Especially now, after Aizen's slaughter, for which her father carried a sickening amount of survivor's guilt.

The hydrangeas were in full bloom, a shimmering image of pastels that faded from pink to blue to purple. Irises, lavender, sunflowers and tulips – along the manor paths, there were deep coloured florals at every curve and straight. As a child, Kiyuku had spent hours upon hours in amongst the beds, assigning names to every flower, humming a song to complement their scent. Mostly pretending to be a butterfly. However, out of all the fantastic blooms, her favourite resided inside the manor under meticulous care.

At the front entrance, her sisters stood waiting. All three of them, squealing in unison at the sight of their youngest sibling coming along the paths: "Ki-yu-ku-_chaaan_!"

Expensive perfume, silk, soft red curls. Home. Mina, Aniko and Chiyo wrapped their arms around any open space of body they could find and hugged Kiyuku tightly.

"You look smart in your uniform!"

"Did you bake these cookies?"

"One of your orchids died."

"We missed you, Kuku-chan!"

Kiyuku, both cringing and giggling, hugged each of her sisters back.


	3. The Aramiya Family

Chapter 3  
The Aramiya Family

Alongside Hinamori's cookies, Kiyuku's mother had laid out an array of teatime treats: cake, dorayaki, sugared fruits and sweet dumplings for Mina's kids. Not all of it would be eaten, and the leftovers would be packaged in little gold boxes for Kiyuku to take back to the barracks.

Until she sat amongst the antique décor of the drawing room – with its high white walls and paintings and house plants, its ancient vases and weaponry – Kiyuku always forgot how much she missed being home. There was a peculiar smell, something of a mix between her mother's perfume, tea and wood that invariably submerged her in a sense of childlike comfort.

Aramiya Narime, or Mama, sat next to Kiyuku, steeping a pot of matcha. "Have you seen how big the koi are getting? They're enjoying the new lilies in the pond."

She was a small woman, almost as small as Kiyuku herself, who always managed to seem ethereal and fairylike in the folds of her beautiful kimonos. Feminine and polished in everything. Hardly ever venturing to raise her voice – there was only one time that Kiyuku could recall her mother shouting, which was when a fourteen-year-old Aniko had unintentionally fallen on one of the family quails. It made for a big joke now, but at the time Mama had been wildly unhappy about the poor, squashed bird.

Narime had been a Shinigami too, a seventh seat in the thirteenth squad, though apparently she'd never been very serious about it. Far too concerned with finding a husband, she'd said once. Which is exactly what she went and did, wooing one guy after the next until finally falling head over heels with a much older Aramiya Sakudo. They got married within months of meeting, and she resigned as soon as she fell pregnant with Mina.

At the end of the drawing room, where an open door lead out to the koi pond, the aforementioned Sakudo played with his grandsons. Though he was quickly approaching old age – at least according to Chiyo – Sakudo threw and wrestled and piggy-backed the boys with the willingness of a perfectly young man. Mina's sons screeched and kicked with delight, while her baby girl lay asleep in a pile of silk blankets.

"The flowers are looking beautiful, Mama," Kiyuku said, taking a plate of sugared fruits and dorayaki.

"Don't they just? But I'm so sorry about your orchid, Kuku. I must have overwatered it."

Chiyo looked meaningfully at Kiyuku. "Nobody knows how to properly take care of your plants."

Aniko nodded. "You need to come home more often and do it yourself."

Chiyo and Aniko were twins. Rather than the bright red hair of their mother, they had in common a mass of deep auburn curls and freckles to match. They also shared the peculiar tendency of exclusively falling for brothers – now as adults, Aniko's fiancé was Chiyo's husband's younger brother.

"I think I'm going to have to take the orchids back to my barracks, actually. I've been moved to a new room," Kiyuku grinned.

"Oh, wonderful. It gets more sun than the old one, I hope?" Narime said. "Are you near a garden?"

"There's not a lot of sun in the morning, but by the afternoon it's quite nice. It's a very big room, though – there's more space than I know what to do with."

"We could help you decorate!" Mina suggested, face wide and dazzling with enthusiasm. "We have so much furniture just lying around, and I'm sure the boys would love to spend the day."

Kiyuku smiled. "That would be nice."

This was life in the Aramiya household – one of domestic delights, where food was delicious and the gardens were exquisite and décor was exciting. More than anything else though, the Aramiya household was one where there was nothing more wonderful than a happy marriage. For Narime and Sakudo, there was immense joy to be had in the love lives of their daughters. As children, bedtime stories had revolved around princesses awaiting their prince. Playtime involved baby dolls and dress up in Mama's old kimonos. Sometimes, when they were still very little, the twins would pretend to marry each other. Romance and domesticity were the be all and end all. Even now, to Mina, Chiyo and Aniko, being a wife seemed the most marvelous thing in the world. Luckily they each had a damn-near perfect marriage to look up to.

Kiyuku, on the other hand, couldn't have cared less. Princess stories and mommy-mommy games – where she, being the youngest, was cast constantly as the baby – had always made her bored; and as a teenager the thought of being some man's wife had felt like a diabolical end to everything. She'd decided she never wanted to get married. Kids weren't so bad, but she couldn't exactly imagine being someone's mother either. Her parents never questioned her on this, though Kiyuku was certain they thought she'd change her mind someday. She wouldn't. All her life, she had wanted one thing and she would always want one thing only. To be a Captain. A Captain, and maybe even Captain-Commander when she grew anywhere near as ancient as Genryūsai Yamamoto.

"Speaking of which," Kiyuku began, "Papa! Please could you come here for a moment – there's something I'd like to tell you."

At this, Kiyuku could practically feel the glimmer in each of her sisters' eyes.

"Ah, Kuku!" her father laughed, carrying his grandsons with him to the table. "What news have you got for us today? Wait, don't tell me yet… Let's have some tea before we get too excited to eat anything."

So they sat together, the boys having run off to the garden with their dumplings. Naturally – while their mother and the twins nibbled on small bits of small servings – Kiyuku, Mina and their father nursed healthy appetites with full plates.

"These cookies are delightful, Kuku!" Sakudo remarked.

"Did you make them yourself?" Aniko took a second one from the box.

"No. My lieutenant did."

Some nods. Hums of approval. Then the family paused to look at their youngest.

"What?"

"Your _lieutenant_?"

Kiyuku beamed, putting her arms out as though to show off the white haori she wasn't wearing. "I'm a captain now!"

Her sisters – and even her mother – squealed. "Kuku! This is fantastic! Congratulations!"

"Well, look at that, my little girl is all grown up!" Her father practically leaped across the table to embrace her. "Which squad? Is your lieutenant nice?"

"We are so proud of you, sweet girl," her mother said, planting a firm kiss on Kiyuku's cheek.

"Maybe _now_ you can get a boyfriend," Chiyo remarked, to which everyone laughed despite the fact that they all knew she was serious.


	4. Shinigami Women's Association

Chapter 4  
Shinigami Women's Association

She was on the verge of being late, but Kiyuku simply had to spend a few extra seconds staring at the trees. It was nearing the end of spring, and by now all the sakura trees around Seireitei had shed their blossoms for leaves. Except for these ones. Here, a brilliant pink cloud continued to shimmer upon the branches – enchanting, more magical than what Kiyuku had seen anywhere else. A breeze made the flowers tremble and dance. A pair of long-tailed birds flirted amongst the blush-coloured petals.

With every moment she ran the risk of being caught, but Kiyuku had been here many times before with her family. She'd probably be able to talk herself out of any trouble – at least with the guards. The particular residents of this particular manor, however, were a different story.

"What are you doing on my property?"

With a start, Kiyuku spun to confront the displeased voice. Distressingly tall and glaring down at her, it was a familiar face. Unwelcoming, the features all chiseled and cold, but familiar nonetheless – no other than Kuchiki Byakuya himself.

Kiyuku, perhaps not feeling as flustered as she should have, pointed to the trees. "Your sakura are beautiful."

In return, Byakuya offered no response other than the slightest raise of his eyebrows.

"My sisters told me they're the loveliest in Seireitei at the moment. I wanted to see for myself."

"You're trespassing."

"I'm a family friend paying you and your trees a visit."

There was a twitch in the corner of his mouth. Really, neither of them were wrong. With a quiet huff, Byakuya turned his back to her. "Very well then. But you'll have to excuse me – I'll escort you out."

Not sure whether to follow, run or shunpo herself away, Kiyuku stood dumbly for a moment. Either way, though, it seemed she would be missing her first meeting with the Shinigami Women's Association. Over a pretty tree. Typical.

"Are you coming?"

Feeling rather like a scolded child – more annoyed than embarrassed – Kiyuku crept along behind Byakuya. A silence separated them; it wasn't uncomfortable, both of them too proud to admit a sense of such, but a lack of any personal familiarity set off by the highly personal relationship that had existed between their parents made it close enough to awkward.

As the two of them got closer to the main gate Byakuya spoke once again, unaffected as ever. "Your mother has asked me to invite you for dinner."

Suddenly hot, shrinking at the burning sensation in her face, Kiyuku replied, "I'm sorry. Please don't feel obliged."

"I don't, but out of respect for your parents, you're welcome to join me tomorrow evening."

_You don't sound very welcoming_. "Thank you, but that's really not necessary."

"Tomorrow evening," Byakuya repeated, and Kiyuku felt the finality of the statement.

They rounded a corner. Kiyuku grew irritated with her mother. The latter had always expressed a concern about her daughter's terrific lack of a social life, and after Kiyuku had told the family about her new position as captain, Mama seemed to think that she'd become even more isolated. More horrendously hermit-like.

Manipulating the Kuchiki family's delicate binary of honour and obligation was clearly her sweet, straightforward way of fixing a problem that didn't exist.

Another corner. A long corridor. From behind, there came a tug on Kiyuku's sleeve – looking down, she first saw the shock of pink hair. Then a teensy finger held to even teensier lips. Then the thrilled, glinting eyes of the eleventh squad's lieutenant, who pulled her back around the corner with a ghostly little giggle and into an entrance Kiyuku hadn't noticed before. Within seconds, she was plucked from the stifling miasma of Byakuya's silence and thrust instead into the curious gaze of what could only be the Shinigami Women's Association.

"Nice to see you, Aramiya-san," Unohana was the first to greet her, that baffling mix of motherliness and icy threat making Kiyuku swallow against nothing. "We've been wondering where you were."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to keep you all waiting." Thinking back to the sakura blossoms and then to Byakuya's dinner invitation – if it could even be called that – Kiyuku realised her face was still hot and blushing; and with what was to follow, the sensation only grew much worse.

"Yuku-chan's got a date!" Yachiru began to shriek. "Yuku-chan's got a _date_!"

Unable to decide whether she was more shocked by the little girl's boldness or by the accusations she made, Kiyuku became aware of the eagerness with which the other women watched for a reaction. "It's nothing like that," she insisted.

"It is, it is! It's a date with Byak…"

To Yachiru's dismay, Kiyuku shushed her. "No. It's _nothing _like that," she said again with greater venom.

At first, she'd expected a sort of women's rights union, petitioning for change and greater pay. To be fair, the Women's Association clearly _was_ concerned with improvement and fundraising – Kiyuku was particularly surprised by their role in the creation of the Soul Candy – but more than anything, they were a well-funded fun-club. Much of the discussion was centered upon construction plans for an exclusive swimming pool. Excessive hilarity was exchanged over the association's Captain Photo and Trading Card Collection; before then, Kiyuku hadn't had the faintest idea that such a thing existed, and as the meeting wore on she was ever more shocked by her own lack of knowledge on Seireitei gossip and pop culture. There were snacks though, which she chewed through slowly and deliberately, listening with girlish awe to the exchanges that flitted before her.

"What did you think of your first meeting, Aramiya-taichou?" Hinamori – an active member in the club as Kiyuku was relieved to learn – asked at the end of the proceedings.

"It was enlightening."

This elicited much laughter from the rest of them.

"And this wasn't even the fun part!" Matsumoto, whose womanly assets never ceased to alarm and amaze Kiyuku, said with something of a purr. "Tomorrow is ladies night at the bar. You'll come, won't you taichou?"

Once again, Kiyuku thought of Byakuya's insistence on dinner. "Maybe next time," she smiled, feeling the red spread across her cheeks like a rash.


	5. Hisana

Chapter 5  
Hisana

Everything dark and still, Byakuya felt Hisana's eyes stare through him.

Night after night, she smiled and said nothing and he felt a hole in his chest as though she weren't just paper. As though her silence were an affliction. As though she could reach through the frame to touch him but wouldn't: disgusted, ashamed. _I'm trying, Hisana. Help me, Hisana. _

For the heart she wouldn't have upon this shrine, she'd taken his to the grave. It was cold there. Cold and dusty with ash, and quiet enough for Byakuya to grow sick at the echoes of nothing. Crushed by the expanse of her absence. Detached from the parts of himself with which he had loved her: every inch of his skin, every measure of his soul, shed away slowly by the hollow left in her place.

The sakura bloomed without her. The sun rose and fell and apparently didn't notice that she was gone. The snow melted, the rain fell, the koi grew and the days moved on to the next. Only Byakuya had halted; only he spent his nights gazing into the lifeless and faded face of her image.

And there was no promise of resuming, frozen instead at the end of her life. He was locked to the grave, held by ball and chain to the portrait of his wife.


	6. Calligraphy

Chapter 6  
Calligraphy

"Aramiya-sama, I am very sorry. Kuchiki-sama isn't expected home for another hour at least, and dinner likely won't be ready for a while after that." The head maid seemed embarrassed by this unfortunate arrangement, bowing her head continually. "My sincerest apologies, Aramiya-sama."

It wasn't by any particular desire that Kiyuku had returned to Kuchiki Manor that evening, driven instead by her own sense of noble obligation – both out of respect for the Kuchiki family and for her mother.

Even so though, Kiyuku couldn't deny that she felt a certain amount of excitement at the prospect of another sakura viewing. Still more than that, from as far back as she could remember, dinners with the Kuchikis had always been superb: course upon course of the finest fish and beef, glowing sauces, soups, the most perfect rice in the world. And the desserts… _oh_, the _desserts_.

However, thanks to an excessive punctuality as well as her lifelong habit of dining and sleeping far earlier than most, Kiyuku had failed to consider the prematurity of her arrival.

"Please don't apologise. I'm much earlier than I originally thought," she reassured. "May I wait inside?"

The maids had no objection to this and she ended up in the art gallery. A cup of sake was brought in – supposedly a welcoming drink from her host, which was doubtful and which she didn't drink – before she was left to admire the display of works.

As a favour to their father, Kuchiki Ginrei had given Kiyuku and her sisters lessons in calligraphy. Though her sisters managed to learn without complication, Kiyuku had destroyed much precious paper and wasted tremendous amounts of ink. Not because she'd been terrible – she wasn't very good, but not terrible either – but because of perfectionistic temper tantrums. A single wrong stroke, a simple drip of ink, and Kiyuku would send the brush flying in horrific shapes. Tears had been be shed, her big and bossy sisters had chided her, and soon enough she'd been banned from the lessons.

Hung upon the wall was one of Ginrei's most beautiful pieces of calligraphy. Brush strokes as perfectly curved as lily pads, ink blacker than coal upon gold leafed parchment. Mesmerizing.

Despite her impossibly uptight temperament, Ginrei had liked Kiyuku. Once, he'd even told her parents that she had 'potential'. To Kiyuku's mind, this had seemed the most fantastic compliment she would ever receive – and, thus far, it was. Kuchiki Ginrei thought she had potential! She'd decided then that she wanted to be _just like him_. Of course, her mind had changed somewhat over the years, but still she credited the old man as being her original inspiration in becoming a captain.

For the entirety of her time alone, Kiyuku ogled the sculptures and sketches and paintings. Apart from her family's own collection, some of Seireitei's finest artworks were before her; if she could have spent the rest of her evening in this way, surrounded by ink and colour, she would almost have been happy to miss dinner. _Almost_ – but by the time Byakuya arrived back from the day's duties, she was hungry enough to rush out and meet him.

"I gather you've been here long," he said, not too pleased but not saying so.

"You never gave me a time, so I came as soon as possible."

"I see. My apologies."

He offered her more sake, she accepted. Kiyuku wasn't fond of the spirit, preferring plumb wine or nothing alcoholic, but it was impolite to decline the first drink with your host.

Over the dining table, they exchanged small talk.

"Is your family well?"

"Yes, thank you. Mama is enjoying her new granddaughter. Aniko's wedding plans are coming along."

"Indeed. I've received an invitation."

"Good."

"And they are all pleased with your captaincy?"

"They are."

"Good."

Suffocating.

Dinner came as the greatest relief, not only for Kiyuku's appetite but for the conversation as well. Both of them dished up mindfully, chewed slowly to keep their mouths occupied. Occasionally, some more uninspired words would be exchanged. By her third helping of miso glazed cod – which was heavenly – Kiyuku felt sick and couldn't blame the food – which was to die for.

The next question tumbled from her mouth without any noble grace. "Do you still offer calligraphy classes?"

Byakuya raised an eyebrow, setting down his chopsticks. "Every second week."

"I'd like to attend sometime. I've always wanted to master calligraphy."

No she didn't. She would rather eat sand. Even to her own ears, the words sounded laughably false; still, they made for better conversation than anything else that had already been spoken of.

"I seem to recall my grandfather teaching your sisters. Were you not involved in those lessons?"

"Oh, I was very young."

No response. Kiyuku could tell that Byakuya could tell that she was lying. He stared at her, blank and unmoving, before signaling for the table to be cleared. "There will be another class next week."

"Wonderful! I'll bring my mother's brushes."

"No need – there are plenty of old ones for you to use. You ought to practice before borrowing someone else's." Byakuya suggested, his eyes full of knowing. "Otherwise you might just damage them."

He was right, of course. However, Kiyuku felt personally affronted by this derisive 'damage' that he spoke of. The idea of such a class still made her cringe, but now there was something to prove. She was older; calligraphy couldn't possibly be as hard now as it had been years ago.

Kiyuku gave a stiff nod. "Alright. I will use the old ones then."

Their plates were taken, the leftovers removed. Byakuya refilled her only half-empty cup as well as his own.

Changing the subject, Kiyuku asked, "Why didn't your sister join us this evening?"

"She had a previous engagement."

Though Kiyuku hadn't interacted much with Rukia, she was wary of her. Not for any personal reason – Rukia herself seemed nice – but for her role in the matter of Kurosaki Ichigo. Indeed, Kiyuku considered him a 'matter'. The mere idea of his supposed status as a 'Substitute Shinigami' was enough to make her shiver. She thought the whole situation rather disgraceful and the following he had gained in Seireitei was alarming. He was not a Shinigami in any way or form and for all the good he had done in the war against Aizen, it was a good thing that he was losing his powers.

But Kiyuku thought it best to keep such sentiments to herself.

To her surprise, Byakuya stood after having finished his drink.

No dessert. There was no dessert. The thought made Kiyuku's heart pound – what kind of nobleman didn't serve dessert after dinner? She was so shocked by this, so taken aback by the lack of sweetness in their meal, that she missed what Byakuya said to her.

"Hmm?"

Once again, he raised his eyebrows, sounding annoyed. "I thought you would want to look at the sakura, since you were stopped short yesterday."

"Oh." She should have been ecstatic. But there was no dessert. "Yes please. That would be lovely." With that, she too stood and followed Byakuya quietly to the garden.


	7. Blossoms

Chapter 7  
Blossoms

Despite the relationship between their families, Byakuya knew very little about Kiyuku. She'd been hardly more than a child by the time he'd inherited his title and as a teenager he'd had no interest in fostering any sort of familiarity with someone half his age. Of course, he had known about the youngest Aramiya sister, on occasion even having seen her roam the manor gardens; though his attention would usually have been on training, the glaring red hair and childish shrieks were impossible to miss.

Other than that, Kiyuku had been nothing more than a concept to him. Vague. Faceless. Irrelevant.

To suddenly find himself spending an evening with her was… odd. Not necessarily as unpleasant as he had first assumed but unexpected and inconveniencing nonetheless. However, Byakuya couldn't find it in himself to turn down a request from Aramiya Narime. Kiyuku clearly shared his feelings as well. As was to be expected from the descendent of a noble family, she was well-mannered, refined – but there was a thrown undercurrent that made her seem restless. Even while wandering the art gallery, unaware of Byakuya's presence, she had tapped at the sake cup, glanced one too many times from sketch to sculpture.

She ate a lot too. It would have been off-putting, had it not gone near unnoticed. Somehow, Kiyuku managed to pick her food subtly, with impressive grace, so that it almost seemed she weren't reaching for a third or fourth helping at all. Byakuya couldn't decide whether she simply had a large appetite – surprising for someone nearly smaller than Rukia – or whether it was a nervous habit.

Clouds had come over the sky this evening. A thin scent of rain threatened. Still, as the Kuchikis had prided themselves on for centuries, the sakura blossoms were as spectacular as ever, practically glowing against the shallow darkness.

Kiyuku stood with her hands against the terrace railing. Since leaving the dinner table, she had assumed a sullen hush, though Byakuya couldn't possibly imagine why.

"Do the blossoms displease you?" he asked, remaining unaffected but intending a certain amount of mockery.

"No, they are beautiful. The most beautiful I've seen." Kiyuku offered him a glowering stare. "However, the lack of dessert disturbs me."

So she simply had a large appetite then.

"I didn't realise you'd still be hungry."

"Dessert isn't meant to satisfy hunger. It's meant to please the spirit," she said this as though she were but the grandest of philosophers.

Byakuya, annoyed, narrowed his eyes at her. "I see. My apologies, but I don't keep desserts in the Manor."

Utter surprise. "Why not?"

"I'm not fond of them."

"That's simply unacceptable." When she looked at him again though, she smiled, seeming to have forgiven what was an unforgiveable transgression.

Things went quiet; Kiyuku spent an age watching the blossoms. Byakuya didn't suppose she realised, but she swayed together with them as though she herself were upon the tree.

To think of it, she looked a lot like her mother – or at least, what Byakuya remembered Aramiya Narime to look like. Sylph-ish. Wide featured and soft with a curious point to the nose. Translucently pale. There was something different in the eyes though.

"Thank you for inviting me," Kiyuku said, suddenly straightforward. "My mother tends to worry about things she doesn't need to worry about."

"As mothers do."

"Yes, as they do."

"She mentioned something of her concerns." Byakuya considered the wording of the letter he had received – charming, elegant, undeniably manipulative despite the maternal affect. "I didn't think them too serious."

"Not at all. And yet, here we are," Kiyuku gave a slight, self-conscious giggle.

"Indeed."

Looking out to the sakura just then, Byakuya realised how long had passed since he had stopped to appreciate them. Locked up in the barracks, barred by paperwork – and though the blossoms lasted late into the spring, it was only a matter of days now before their pale beauty began to wilt, faces downturned in resignation and exhaustion before giving way to leaves. Perhaps he would have missed them this year had it not been for this inconvenient evening.


	8. Talent and Manic Labour

Chapter 8  
Talent and Manic Labour

Over the past week, Kiyuku-chan had filled her new office with orchids – on her desk, along the shelves, their petal faces dramatic and confident like butterflies. Deep plum, dusty pink, white and tangerine. It was a stunning setoff to the piles of paperwork and folders.

Shunsui, admiring a particularly exquisite orchid of copper, waited for Kiyuku-chan to finish with her lieutenant. They looked to be deeply involved in conversation: Kiyuku-chan, chin rested daintily upon her hands, nodded and hummed and seemed enthralled as Hinamori-san spoke. Though he had lingered in the hallway for nearly a quarter of the hour now Shunsui had no desire nor need to interrupt, quite happy to spend his time with one of the finest specimens of flower he had seen.

Even so, it was not long before Hinamori-san left the office, arms packed with documents, and Shunsui was permitted entry.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting, taichou," Kiyuku-chan said, setting aside a heavy stack of papers. "Hinamori-san had some important feedback to give me."

"Not at all, not at all. I had lovely company." Shunsui glanced again at the corps of flowers. "Speaking of which, you're looking lovely as any orchid today. Has the captaincy been treating you well?"

At this, Kiyuku-chan beamed. "Most definitely. Thank you, taichou."

"I see you've been busy."

Thoroughly pleased, Kiyuku-chan gave a rundown of the week's events: several meetings with her seated officers, consideration and analysis of the low-level Hollow appearances throughout Soul Society, paperwork, rearrangement of the squad's general duties, more paperwork. Indeed, even the documentation to finalize her new position, which typically took no less than twenty five days, was already finished.

Shunsui gave a loud chuckle. "You say it all with such vigour."

"Well, I've waited forever to do this kind of work."

"Is there place for a quick stroll in that schedule of yours?"

Kiyuku-chan regarded her work, torn as a mother parting from her child. "A few minutes."

They meandered through the fifth squad's barracks, talking of all sorts. Kiyuku-chan liked her lieutenant well; the hollow situation seemed to be under control; there had been a lot of rain the last few days.

"And what have you gotten up to for fun lately, Kiyuku-chan?"

"Fun?"

"It's not all work and no play as a captain," Shunsui teased, his former third seat regarding him with uncertainty. What was this fun that he spoke of? There was no time for _fun_.

"I take care of my flowers," she said after some thought. "And I read poetry before bed."

A wistful sigh. "Ah, yes. What's beautiful is good."

"And I had dinner with Kuchiki-taichou some nights ago."

Shunsui already knew about this, having overhead Nanao-chan and Hitsugaya's lieutenant debating the situation. He also knew that there was nothing to it really: the Aramiya and Kuchiki families had been just about joined at the hip for centuries. Still, he feigned surprise. "Oh? How was it?"

"Quite pleasant." Kiyuku-chan deliberated again before adding, "I'm considering taking one of his calligraphy classes."

From this, a more philosophical conversation evolved – what was the role of the artist in meaning and what was art exactly? Shunsui maintained that intention was enough: that the artist's purpose in his creations was the foremost necessary condition. Kiyuku-chan disagreed. It was mastery that made an art work. It was skill and technique that set apart 'well-intended' scratchings from the masterpieces.

It was rare to come across a Shinigami with such intimate awareness of – yet alone any appreciation or liking for – art; and when such a Shinigami did happen to appear Shunsui was sure to snatch them up quickly. By a fortunate twist of fate, he had discovered Kiyuku-chan when she was still just a graduate from the Academy, sitting alongside a pond and looking more harried than he would ever see her otherwise. Writing a poem about the lilies.

Though he had asked and coaxed and appealed, he was not permitted sight of this writing.

_I'm awful_, Kiyuku-chan had said of her skill, defying the captain's requests with daring that only noble children could get away with.

_No. You are an artist. _

_Forgive me, Kyoraku-taichou_, _but one cannot be an artist if they don't have any talent. If that were the case, we ought to be calling every doodle in the sand a masterpiece._

To this day, he hadn't ever read one of her poems.

"It must be about time for afternoon tea," Shunsui observed with a look at the sky. "Why don't you join me?"

"I still have some work to get back to…"

"Nonsense, you're far ahead already." This he knew for certain; as a matter of fact, it was largely why he had come to interrupt her work day. "I insist."

Of course, she relented. At a teahouse near the fifth squad's barracks the two of them were seated by a window. Shunsui requested a special brew which he suspected Kiyuku-chan would like. Seeing her looking restless, though still cheery and agreeable, he also requested a refill for later.

"Tell me, Kiyuku-chan, have you hosted a party with the seated officers to celebrate your new position yet?"

"I haven't done anything worth celebrating. The officers would think me a bit presumptuous."

"You're too uptight! There's _always _something to celebrate and everybody always _loves_ a party. Where's your sense of youthful festivity?"

Kiyuku-chan smiled at him, enveloping the steaming cup of tea in her hands. "You should know by now that I don't have such a sense."

"And yet your family is renowned for their marvelous parties," Shunsui said teasingly.

"Certainly, but I've been told that I take after my father's father. He was uptight, as you say, and didn't much like playing host."

Shunsui laughed. "No wonder he and Kuchiki Ginrei were such good friends."

"Yes. No wonder," and Kiyuku-chan also gave a giggle, delightful as bubbles.

"I'm sure your officers will appreciate something celebratory, though. Even just a few drinks with their new captain." Looking meaningfully at her, Shunsui became serious – still smiling, of course, but speaking sternly. "You shouldn't work them or yourself too hard too quickly."

Indeed, this was the crux of his stopping by. Even as a third seat, Kiyuku-chan had been prone to bouts of manic labour. Days after days of uninterrupted productivity that put even Nanao-chan to shame. Though she was like the finest worker bee during these bouts, buzzing with a smile and completing weeks' worth of work in a matter of days, it happened to go south rather quickly. Extended silences and disconcerting moments of confusion would be the first to slink in. Then irritability. Then infertile anxiety that amounted to wide eyed stares and sleeplessness – and Kiyuku-chan was hopeless if she didn't sleep.

A gross inability to pace herself was perhaps her greatest weakness, though it only happened to get quite so bad when she was overexcited. This was exactly why Shunsui had thought to pay her a visit – the first week of captaincy could certainly be very exciting.

Kiyuku-chan's fingers began to jump along the cup. "You think I'm working my squad too hard?"

"No. Not as yet. I just thought I ought to remind you that vicious efficiency isn't the only thing that makes for happy officers. There needs to be a certain amount of frivolity."

Criticism made her edgy, and though she was by no means being criticised – Shunsui thought she had done a good job so far – the brilliant pink flush of tension had come across Kiyuku-chan's features. "Frivolity is for friends. I'm their captain."

"I didn't say you ought to be anything else."

She lowered her gaze. "Sorry, taichou."

Shunsui laughed again. "Lighten up, Kiyuku-chan! You're doing wonderfully. I just want to make sure you're not working yourself into the ground. You did enough of that training your Bankai – now it's time to enjoy the fruits of your labour." Refilling their cups, Shunsui knew exactly how to lighten her mood. "Speaking of which, what do you say to some sakura mochi to go with our tea?"

Without a doubt, Kiyuku-chan's lips parted into a grin.

Speaking no more of work matters, teatime came to an end with the afternoon and Shunsui walked Kiyuku-chan back to the barracks. A force of nature, she showed no signs of slowing over the days that followed and the fifth squad's productivity continued to skyrocket. However, she made an effort to take each of her seated officers out for lunch – no more than a single glass of alcohol, but otherwise their options were not limited – and gave days off more freely than most.

Somewhere along the line, there appeared talk of a floral club that was to be hosted by the fifth squad's captain. Shunsui hoped to hear more of it in the coming weeks.


	9. Distort and Diminish

Chapter 9  
Distort and Diminish

They'd been there hardly thirty minutes and Byakuya was frustrated.

He'd instructed many hopeless fools before and had seen some disgraceful pieces of calligraphy. Impossibly blotched strokes, ink laid thick as oil. He'd even reached a point of imagining that there wasn't much worse for him to come across. Kiyuku, for all the things she excelled at, managed to change that.

In the first place, she had the strangest way of gripping the brushes: a sort of clumsy envelopment that looked exceedingly painful. Byakuya had spent several minutes trying to correct her. Demonstrating. Attempting to mold her fingers into a suitable position – the resistance put up by such a tiny hand was astounding. At one point, after yanking her fingers so hard he'd thought they'd snap, Kiyuku seemed to figure out the proper grip. But no. Her fingers slipped straight into another ridiculous arrangement the moment he left her table.

She mixed her ink too thickly. She dipped the brush too deep.

Most importantly, she clearly had no patience. No sense of gentle, methodical movement. Even on the simplest of strokes, Kiyuku flung her brush across the page in a careless dash, and as the class went on she only grew more impetuous with her work.

Byakuya had heard the horror stories from his grandfather. While Kiyuku the child had been an outstanding little creature otherwise, she'd made for a profoundly irritating calligraphy student. Perfectionistic and dissatisfied, she'd spent most lessons throwing temper tantrums and mucking up materials. There'd been a lot of crying.

Granted, she'd been a very young girl then. It was mostly for this reason that Byakuya had half-expected a somewhat smoother flow of events – she was older now, much more skilled generally. Surely there would be an improvement. Clearly not. Time had not done her artistic hand well. Byakuya even doubted if, with years of meticulous training, she would ever improve to be more than mediocre.

As frustrated as he himself was, Byakuya recognised in Kiyuku an even greater displeasure. Ever tightening jaw, lips pursed into a sharp line. And there was that garish pink flush so peculiar to all the Aramiya sisters; at the threat of any unflattering emotion it would flare up across her cheeks, blotchy and hot like a rash. Almost as bright as that wispily messed hair. Byakuya couldn't decide whether it was more irksome or amusing to watch Kiyuku writhe in silence over her painful lack of ability.

Once again at her side, he glared down at the heavily ink paper. "You're using too much pressure."

"I'm being as gentle as I can," Kiyuku insisted. "It's your ink. There's something wrong with it."

"There's nothing wrong with the ink."

She mumbled something he couldn't hear.

"It's not very becoming of a noblewoman to mutter. Speak up."

A poisonous glance. She may as well have stuck her tongue out at him. "It's not very becoming of a nobleman to be querulous with his students. Help me fix your ink."

Byakuya was about to repeat himself when one of his seated officers tore through the door.

"Kuchiki-taichou! A high level hollow has appeared in the Seireitei! Several officers have been taken down. The fourth squad is currently on the scene, but we are unable to overpower the hollow!"

Kiyuku was out the door before the officer had finished speaking.

Indeed, it was a dark reiatsu, stifling like smoke and heavy upon the chest. Byakuya and Kiyuku hurried through the streets towards it, hearing high-pitched howls echo through alleyways. There appeared the shouts and groans of other Shinigami, along with alarming fluctuations in their reiatsu. Over the rooftops, Byakuya glimpsed a massive pincer, an even larger pitchforked tail. They needed only to round the corner before coming to face it.

The hollow, metallic and plated, was suddenly still. A hybrid – some shocking mix between the body of a scorpion and the torso of a man – it stared Byakuya and Kiyuku dead in the eye. Looming. Hunting. Its mask was abnormal, caged in by twisting and serrated horns.

"An armor of some sort," Byakuya observed. "I see now why the officers haven't been able to overwhelm it."

Kiyuku hummed. "Even my shikai wouldn't be able to cut through it too quickly. And that's if I could get close enough in the first place," she said this clearly knowing there was no question about her abilities.

Though the hollow remained unmoving, there was a berserk flare in its reiatsu, enough to nauseate with fear. However, Byakuya was unmoved and Kiyuku remained perfectly composed at his side – though Byakuya could tell that she was also ever so slightly excited.

She drew her sword. "Do you think you'd be able to get rid of that armour for me?"

"Of course."

"Wonderful."

She vanished from beside him, reiatsu growing faint before it disappeared completely. Provoked, rising on its hind legs, the hollow let out a horrific shriek and began to charge.

Byakuya, too, released his sword. The hollow directly in his line, earth trembling as it beat towards him, he held out his weapon and said, "Scatter, _Senbonzakura_."

Before him, the blades were magnificent – glinting pink in the sunlight, swirling as though carried through the breeze. By the elegance of his zanpakuto the hollow was unfazed. It continued towards him, pincers menacing and prepared for the kill. The eyes of the other Shinigami were upon him: best to retreat from the battle of a captain, of course. To station oneself along the sidelines so as to not miss the view. Byakuya set his focus on the hollow and sent the pieces of his zanpakuto forth in a luminous glimmer.

A sickening twist of its body. A violent shake of its head. It dodged Byakuya's attack with ease and came upon him. Still, Byakuya's calm did not waver. He flash stepped out of the hollow's path and reappeared behind it, driving the multitude of blades back towards his enemy in a single smooth strike. This time, the hollow was unprepared. Suddenly under the mercy of Senbonzakura's piercing force, it let out another shrill howl. Clawing at the blades around its mask. Shaking its head in bone-cracking directions. With such fierce movements it managed to diffuse Byakuya's attack – only too late. The armour around its mask cracked and fell in jagged shapes, and at such a loss the hollow growled.

It pounced forth once again. Byakuya was prepared to deliver the final blow when, appearing from nothing, Kiyuku was at the hollow's neck. Her shikai had materialized: two bladed fans, each opened to the wing span of a large bird. Body poised and lithe, with the gentle movement that she couldn't offer her calligraphy, Kiyuku threw her arm and sent one of the fans flying. "Distort and diminish, _Mubōna_ _Yorokobi_."

Its segments separated themselves and, like fleeting stars of multitudinous colours, they shimmered and danced before disappearing into the hollow's nape.

Instantly, the enemy halted, and Byakuya was surprised to see a look cross its features. Something of confusion and shock – he hadn't imagined that hollows could be so expressive. Its beady eyes blinked in rapid succession, its head beginning to tremble. Low growls rose out from the pit of its throat in nauseating quavers. Like a poisoned animal, the hollow started to paw at its mask – the eyes and nose and mouth, slowly at first and then with ever greater desperation. Writhing.

It gave one final howl before Kiyuku, other fan now closed, let down a single, clean blow. There was a heavy cracking, its mask splitting into two. Byakuya continued to watch intently and for a moment thought he saw a glimpse of pleading in its face – and then it was gone. Dissipated into ash and blown off by the wind, leaving nothing but some injured officers in its wake.

Kiyuku landed deftly on her feet, smiling. After a satisfied breathe she said, "I would take hollows over calligraphy any day."

Byakuya, ignoring her statement, sheathed Senbonzakura and regarded the lone fan. He gestured to it, "What of your other one?"

"The blades disintegrate in the enemy and then the left over spirit particles rejoin with the one I hold. See?" She flicked open the fan, and Byakuya noted that it was double the size of before. "It only takes a matter of seconds."

As she waved it gently for before Byakuya, patterns of flowers appeared and vanished along its segments – they were blooming, next they were wilting, then they were buds. A lovely hallucination of petals against the blades.

"Are they poisoned?" Byakuya asked, thinking of their apparently crippling effect.

"You're a curious one, aren't you?" When she was offered no response, she closed her fan and said, "They're not poisoned. Not really. They act as a sort of hallucinogenic – scramble all the senses, make you see and hear and taste things that might or might not be there."

"I see."

"I could show you sometime, if you'd like."

Byakuya assumed she was joking, but she spoke too seriously for him to be certain. He rolled his eyes, turning away. "Come. We'll be getting back to the calligraphy now."

There was no word from her. When Byakuya looked back, he found nothing – without the slightest trace of reiatsu left behind, Kiyuku had vanished.


	10. Dreams of Paper

Chapter 10  
Dreams of Paper

He dreamed of her that night. Hisana. A doll: all wood and silk – no, it was really her. Close enough for him to grasp, to hold. He whispered into nothing and she smiled at the sinking syllables of her name. _Don't leave me, Hisana. Don't leave me this time_. There was an unsettling twist to her lips, a red string pulling at the corners. They opened, closed, opened again. _I can't hear you, Hisana_. He couldn't hear her. Strained his ears. Muttering echoes. Empty. She turned away from him and began to walk into a consuming, white oblivion.

_Come back, Hisana! _

It swallowed his voice.

The ground was paper; it ripped beneath his feet. Terrible. Terrible, awful, sickening rips.

Hisana walked away from him. Bigger and bigger pools of ink formed as she grew smaller into the distance. Following her, chaotic on the paper walls. Pushing and pulling at the steps. He tried to walk with her, treading in the blackness though he knew he shouldn't have. A looming sense that he was making a mess.

_Wait, Hisana_.

He saw his hand on her shoulder, though he felt his arm hanging at his side. No. Mustn't touch her. She'd break. And she did – beneath the weight of his hand, Hisana's body crumpled. Ripped around the edges and folded in on itself and tore where he had touched her. _No! I'll make it right! _Then out of the shoulder came a flower. Two flowers. Five. They bloomed and withered and bloomed again and somewhere the muttering echoes grew clearer.

Petals on his feet. They grew along his legs, his groin, up and up and up until they were everywhere. He felt – was naked, consumed by blossoms.

Something disastrous was coming. The ink was disappearing. He turned back to the blank obscurity from which she, he, they had come; and out of the ink, out of holes, flowers were growing. Thousands of them. Shivering petals like a kaleidoscope. Pinks and crimson and amber. Too sharp for the paper walls. Too bright and perfumed.

He tried to smack away the flowers from his skin. Grabbing, crushing, hurting. _No more flowers. _But they only grew and doubled, sunk their roots into him, sprung forth from his palms and his face and chest. The paper was growing thin. He could see it and was horrified. Their scent was too much. Their colour too brilliant. They were growing too fast and the paper was going to tear. Beneath him, around him, the paper was. Going. To. Tear.

Her name. He called it. Over and over again, he cried her name like a tragic song.

A vicious flash. The flowers were gone.

Byakuya awoke with a violent start. His head was on the floor, there were no blankets over him. In the familiar darkness, not a sound to be heard, it took a moment for him to realise that he was lying alongside Hisana's shrine.


	11. Pink

Chapter 11  
Pink

Wedding preparations were under way in the Aramiya household. Across Aniko's bedroom floor, over the furniture, rolls of material were strewn in river-like lengths of colour. They glistened, gold-lined and patterned by cranes and clouds and florals. Mina's baby girl was endlessly fascinated by the scene, crawling from one silken mass to the next.

"This beige is too pale," Mina said of one of the rolls. "Any one of us could be mistaken for the bride in this!"

"But how gorgeous is this green?" Chiyo held it to her face. Indeed, it complemented her skin tone wonderfully.

Though the day would belong to Aniko – and, yes, to her husband – it was of near equal importance for the rest of them to have something exquisite to wear to the wedding. This was why Kiyuku and her sisters had gotten together that morning: to choose materials for their kimonos. The Aramiya family had at their disposal some of the most talented seamstresses in the Seireitei. No matter how elaborate the request nor how impossible the client – and the Aramiya sisters certainly had a talent for being impossible with their tastes – these seamstresses ever succeeded in creating the most spectacular items of attire to be seen throughout Soul Society.

"You wore green to Mina's wedding," Kiyuku told Chiyo. "Choose something else."

"What about _this _green? It's got a bluer undertone than that one."

"That's too dark," Aniko said with a shake of her head. "Go for a purple this time!"

There were many words of approval at the suggestion.

Such was the content of their conversation for most of the morning. However, despite the abundance of expert opinion and options, Kiyuku didn't find the material she was looking for. There were a lot of reds, which clashed too much with her hair, and golds, which she didn't like. A lot of deep, mature colours that felt heavy and false against her skin.

What she wanted was pink, a light blush like sakura, and there was nothing of the sort to be found.

"Have you ever actually worn pink before?" Mina tried to recall as she wrapped her baby playfully in some of the material.

"I don't think so."

"Yes you have! You wore pink when you were a baby," Chiyo declared.

"That doesn't count, Cho!" Aniko flicked her twin's temple. "Mama and Papa still dressed her then."

"Just make sure not to blush if you do wear pink. It'll clash horribly," Mina laughed.

Kiyuku shrugged, a little despondent at not having found the colour. "Maybe I'll wear my captain's haori. That's formal enough."

Shock. Horror. "Kuku! Don't be absurd!"

"You and Kuchiki-san will look like a matched pair!" Chiyo snickered. "We'd better find you something pink before that happens."

Aniko, suddenly wide eyed, pointed a finger at Kiyuku. "Look how she's _blushing_."

"I'm not blushing!"

A cacophony of giggles erupted as Chiyo, Mina and Aniko watched Kiyuku's face grow ever more coloured. The baby, ignorant but pleased to be part of such a noise, let out a squeal of delight.

"That's right, honey. Look at how red Aunty is." Mina squeezed her baby's cheeks.

"You're even redder than beetroot." Chiyo grazed Kiyuku's face with her fingers. "And you're hot too! Does Kuchiki-san make you all flustered, Kuku?"

"Last night was the third time you've had dinner with Kuchiki-san, _right_?" Aniko smirked. "Has it been _nice _getting to know him?"

"Oh, stop it you two. You're being too nasty," Mina said, though she continued to smile.

Kiyuku, feeling swollen in her skin, didn't know what to say to any of them. Yes, she'd had dinner with Byakuya again. After they'd fought the hollow some weeks ago, he'd taken an interest in her zanpakuto and she'd been happy to oblige him with an explanation of its workings. It was supposed to have been over tea, but she had stayed later than expected. He just so happened to invite her for another dinner, which had been the previous night. That was all there was to it – but her sisters wouldn't hear of such simple explanations.

To Kiyuku's horror, her father's voice came from the door. "All this giggling over some silk?"

The baby screeched at the sight of Sakudo and forced herself from Mina's lap, crawling in a mad dash towards him.

"Kuku's all embarrassed because she's been having dinner dates with Kuchiki-san," Chiyo started.

"And she doesn't want to tell us about it," Aniko finished.

Their father was silent. Kiyuku lifted her head to look at him and found a disconcerting change about his features. After picking up the baby, Sakudo glanced between the twins and then settled his gaze on Kiyuku. "Is this true, Kuku?"

"It's not at all what they're saying it is," Kiyuku spoke calmly, though her face continued to throb. "I've had dinner with Kuchiki-san a few times, but we discuss work. That's all."

Chiyo, Aniko and Mina sunk into themselves.

Their father continued to be silent for a moment, bathing all of them in a sweeping look of surprise. When at last he spoke again, he was composed and lacking in any of his usual cheer. "Girls. I love to see you having fun. But you are not children anymore. You are wise young women who should know better than to disrespect each other and your fellow noblemen."

Even Kiyuku, who knew she was far from being in the wrong, began to feel ashamed of herself. For calling out her sisters. For having dinner with Byakuya, though there was nothing to be ashamed of in that.

Sakudo continued, "Kuchiki-san has shown kindness in offering Kiyuku his hospitality. It shocks me that you should make such jokes about their relationship when you know full well of Kuchiki-san's suffering after the loss of his wife."

At this, Kiyuku and her sisters all exchanged a glance. Whenever their father spoke of Hisana, it was with a near invisible undercurrent of disdain. He had never liked her very much, but never once did he fail in offering her the respect she deserved. Even in her death.

Sakudo's paternal sternness dissipated, and he looked at each of his daughters fondly. "Now, we'll put this behind us and resume in friendship and joy."

"Yes, Papa," Mina, Aniko, Chiyo and Kiyuku chimed together.

Sometimes, the four of them forgot that they were women and not girls. A Shinigami captain. A mother. Wives and wives-to-be. Together, they were bound to behave childishly, as sisters were wont to do. Arguing, teasing. Disrespecting, as their father would say. But it was always with love – pure, childish love – that they fought and then resumed. They did so now, exchanging awkward looks when their father went off with the baby before laughing hysterically at their own ridiculousness.

"Let's see if we can find you something a little better than pink," Mina said, and the four of them began to reconsider the rolls of material.


	12. The Koi Thief

Chapter 12  
The Koi Thief

In one of their conversations, Byakuya had mentioned the koi. Supposedly, the bigger ones were disappearing – just upping and leaving the pond. He couldn't be certain of it at this stage and wasn't sure what measures to take. They weren't sick; the Kuchiki koi _never _got sick and to suggest so was an insult. Predators? Cranes – or maybe even a dog that was getting into the garden through nefarious means? Perhaps.

For good measure, he had shown Kiyuku the pond. Although she certainly hadn't seen any the size of which he had gloated, she was quickly and thoroughly dazzled by the smaller ones. They swirled through the water like golden silks, tails wafting about in hypnotic waves, and when one leaped from the water in an ostentatious show of its scales Kiyuku had gasped with pleasure. At this, Byakuya had seemed surprised – following which he'd told her that she was welcome any time to come and look at the koi herself.

Which she did. Very often. Though her family had koi of their own, theirs weren't quite as marvelous and Aramiya manor was simply far too out the way for regular trips. Kiyuku also suspected that Byakuya was using her enthusiasm as a sort of security system – if the koi were under her eye as often as they were, surely she would catch the culprit for their disappearances. Of course, if it gave her free access to the pond, she didn't mind this so much.

Kiyuku didn't tell her sisters about it and made sure to be discreet in her pond-visits. Byakuya was generally not there and if he was he mostly left her alone, but if news were to spread of her evermore frequent trips to Kuchiki Manor – romantic dusk meetings; secret rendezvouses; whatever else the Shinigami Women's Association might want to call it – she would likely have to give up the koi of which she had grown so fond.

How unfortunate then that this particular evening Kiyuku should spot that unmissable top of pink hair scurrying about the bushes.

Kiyuku stood and glared at nothing. "Kusajishi-fukutaichou! Come out this instant!"

From behind the bridge, Yachiru's head popped out. She was a strange child, wearing cat ears and pawed gloves – where on earth would those have come from? – with which she waved excitedly. "Yuyu!"

The nicknames changed and became more familiar every time. At this point, Kiyuku had accepted it as all the other captains seemed to do. "What are you doing here?"

"Right back at ya!" the little girl smiled.

"Official captain-business."

"Official lieutenant-business." A giggle.

What a menace. Kiyuku walked over the bridge towards her. This particular lieutenant had to be dealt with a little differently to the rest, she had learned, and Kiyuku was not beyond trying her luck this evening. She got down onto her haunches to look Yachiru in the eyes and gave the sweetest smile she could muster. "Kusajishi-fukutaichou. If you tell me what you're doing here – and you need to tell me _first _– then I'll tell you why I'm here too."

A mischievous twinkle passed through Yachiru's eyes and she nodded. Looking clumsy in the cat costume, she pointed to the pond. "I'm getting get-well-soon gifts for Ukki. The big koi in his pond make him so happy."

So it wasn't a dog stealing the koi after all – it was a kitten. At this, Kiyuku didn't know whether to laugh or to scold the girl. She narrowed her eyes against the first. "You do know that's stealing, right? Kuchiki-taichou is very upset about his koi."

"Mmm, but he has so many of them and can buy new ones whenever he likes."

"That's not the point."

"It's your turn now, Yuyu!" Yachiru squealed. "Your turn, your turn, your turn!"

Kiyuku sighed, feeling the redness coming to her face. Over all the years, she had never managed to figure out how to control it. "Kuchiki-taichou lets me visit whenever I like."

Yachiru's eyes widened. "Ooh?"

"Yes." How to put it so that the girl didn't make a scene. "I suppose you could say we're kind of like friends now."

"_Friends_?" Yachiru emphasised the words with such a purr it made Kiyuku nauseous.

"Yes. That's right. _Kind of _friends."

It was the first time Kiyuku had thought of it that way – also the first time she had ever actually used the word since she was a child – even if she didn't really mean it. They weren't friends; but there was no reason for her not to consider him a very close acquaintance.

Yachiru seemed to chew the word in her mouth. Curious. Conceding. And then thrilled. She burst forth so that her face was close to Kiyuku's, her breath smelling of mints and peaches. "Then you can get Byakushi to let us build a pool!"

"Absolutely not."

Yachiru pouted. "Absolutely yes!"

"Absolutely not."

"Yes, yes, yes! Don't be such a meanie!"

"Kuchiki-taichou and I are not that close. The best I can do is to not tell him that you are responsible for his unhappiness over the koi," Kiyuku said. "Though to be honest, Kusajishi-fukutaichou, I'm thinking that I should tell him."

Yachiru gasped. "But then Byakushi will take the koi from Ukki!"

"Well, I mean, they do belong to Kuchiki-taichou."

"Then I'll tell everyone that you sneak in to see Byakushi at night," Yachiru smirked, an endearing little line against her face.

This was exactly where Kiyuku needed her. Sounding more sarcastic than she had intended, Kiyuku said, "Oh no. Please don't do that."

Yachiru didn't seem to notice. "I will!"

"In that case, how about we make a deal?" Kiyuku took the pawed glove from Yachiru's hand and interlocked their pinkies. She'd been a little girl once too and had caught her sisters doing many things that would have made their father cringe. Pinky promises had always been the solution. "If you promise not to take any more koi after tonight _and _don't tell anyone about the fact that Kuchiki-taichou and I are friends, then I promise not to tell on you either."

Once again, the little lieutenant mulled over the taste of this deal. "I'm doing two things though. You need to do me one more favour."

Kiyuku had expected this. "Within reason, of course."

"I'll get back to you on that, then."

"Alright. Then do you accept, Kusajishi-fukutaichou?"

Yachiru's pinky tightened around Kiyuku's with such enthusiasm that the latter was sure her finger would snap. "I accept!"

With one final koi in her paws Yachiru frolicked off the way she'd come, leaving in her wake a series of echoing meows. Before Kiyuku herself left the manor that evening she asked one of the maids to relay a message to Byakuya – the koi thief had been stopped; it was a large cat who was more than happy to listen to reason.

On her desk the next morning was a note, the handwriting finer and more flowing than any woman's. _How did you manage? _Kiyuku smiled, proud of herself, as she wrote back. _I can be convincing when I really try. _


	13. Substitute Shinigami

Chapter 13  
The Substitute Shinigami

The previous day, a Hell Butterfly had appeared in her office. There was to be a Captain's Meeting. All were expected there. While not a matter of the utmost urgency at this stage, there was a matter of the utmost importance to be decided upon.

As the Captain Commander revealed when all of the captains gathered the next day, they were there to discuss Kurosaki Ichigo.

"Following reports by Kuchiki Rukia and other officers stationed in Karakura Town, Kurosaki Ichigo has experienced significant losses in his reiatsu. At the current rate, it is expected that he will lose the powers bestowed upon him within a matter of human days," Genryūsai explained. "This meeting has been called to address the suggestion of maintaining his status as Substitute Shinigami."

Kiyuku couldn't believe that this was something they even had to think about. Besides the fact that it was illegal – she doubted the Central 46 would give favourable permission – it was simply disgraceful to the Shinigami standard. She said so. Most of the captains agreed and further argued her point. Some others, however, were in favour of the suggestion. Kyoraku-taichou was amongst them and it disappointed Kiyuku to see so.

Debating went on for most of the afternoon until Ukitake-taichou, who stood with those backing Kurosaki Ichigo's continued status, offered a compromise. It was his suggestion that while Soul Society remained on uncertain footing – and, fair enough, he was justified in making such a claim – Kurosaki Ichigo's powers ought to be temporally restored in the event of an unforeseen disaster. Kyoraku-taichou added that the Substitute Shinigami had proven himself indispensable during the war against Aizen: surely he would continue to be a valuable ally to the Gotei 13.

Under the silent gaze of the rest of the captains, the Captain Commander considered their options. "It will be put to a vote. Those in favour of refusing Kurosaki's continued status as Substitute Shinigami, please raise your hands."

There were only three of them. Sui-Feng, Byakuya and Kiyuku herself. Her stomach sank.

The Captain Commander continued, "Those in favour of restoring Kurosaki's powers permanently."

Once again, there were three. Ukitake-taichou, Kyoraku-taichou and Zaraki Kenpachi. The beast was only doing it for the sake of continued fighting, Kiyuku knew.

"Finally, those in favour of restoring Kurosaki's powers on a temporary basis until a more sustainable solution is found."

The 'more sustainable' solution was having the human relinquish his powers. Kiyuku couldn't understand how that was not obvious to the rest of them. Still, four hands rose, those of Unohana, Sajin, Hitsugaya and Kurostuchi.

"Then it is decided. Upon approval by the Central 46, each captain is to give an ounce of their own reiatsu to be provided to Kurosaki Ichigo by Kuchiki Rukia for the temporary maintenance of his Substitute powers," the Captain Commander, though seeming displeased by the outcome, rapped the floor with his cane. "Dismissed."

Kiyuku didn't meet her former captain's eye as they all left the Great Hall, chest heavy and face warm in the stinging glow of betrayal.

"You look unhappy with this outcome." Byakuya walked next to her.

"I imagine I could say the same to you."

"It isdisgraceful, as you said."

"Surely you won't allow Rukia-san to go through with it?" Kiyuku pursed her lips.

Byakuya's brow furrowed and he sighed. "_If _the Central 46 give their approval, then it won't be within my power to refuse."

"Ridiculous," Kiyuku scowled. "My father would never have allowed this."

A pause.

"Does your father still hold any sway in the committee?"

The pair of them exchanged a look before Kiyuku said, "He's retired."

"Yes, though he continues to be highly respected, correct?"

Suddenly feeling conspiratorial, Kiyuku glanced around – no one within earshot – and leaned in toward Byakuya. "What are you suggesting, Kuchiki-taichou?"


	14. Manipulative

Chapter 14  
Manipulative

Kiyuku took the rest of the afternoon off to visit her parents.

In a huff – still annoyed after the Captain's meeting and agitated by Byakuya's suggestion – she arrived at Aramiya Manor, taking her mother by surprise.

"Kuku, we weren't expecting you. Are you alright?" Narime held her daughter's cheeks. The coolness of her hands were much welcomed by Kiyuku.

"I need to speak with Papa. Urgently."

Tea was brought to the study table and some salted nuts were laid out. Throwing them into her mouth one by one, chewing fast, Kiyuku waited for her father to sit down before saying anything.

"My sweet!" Sakudo, smiling widely, cooed. "What are you fretting about so?"

"Papa, there was a Captain's Meeting today about that Substitute Shinigami. They want to restore his powers and are sending a request to the Central 46 tonight. You need to write a letter advising the standing councilmen against it," Kiyuku felt every word roll off her tongue, speaking as she would to another captain. Calm, collected as she could possibly be, sounding logical.

Her father tilted his head as though he were looking at an upset puppy. "But what if I would advise them to approve such a request?"

"Please don't tease me."

"Sorry, Kuku. But I'm retired. What do you expect would come from my word?" Sakudo took a handful of nuts and chewed them slowly, watching his daughter.

"Your words still holds some sway. You know they do. Kuchiki-san suggested…"

"This is Kuchiki-san's idea?"

Kiyuku cleared her throat. "_Our _idea. Kuchiki-san suggested, or rather agrees, that you would be able to speak some sense into the situation. You already know that this Substitute Shinigami nonsense is detrimental to Soul Society. Why would you not want to put a stop to it?"

Sakudo looked thoughtful, continuing to smile at Kiyuku. "I appreciate that you've come to your old father at a time like this, but I don't think it's very good conduct for a Shinigami captain to try and influence the Central 46's decisions by such mischievous means as these."

Kiyuku scowled at her father.

"Don't you agree, Kuku?"

"I'm simply a daughter having a theoretical conversation with her dear father – so back to my question," Kiyuku folded her arms, pouting, "why would you not want to put a stop to a situation such as this?" Her next words she considered carefully, saying them with the youngest-child sweetness that had always worked so well on her father. "Or do you think that allowing Kurosaki Ichigo to run amuck between the human world and Soul Society is a _wise_ decision, _Papa_?"

Sakudo gave a hearty chuckle, putting his hands up in mock surrender. "Kuku! You're just like your mother – so manipulative!"

Kiyuku grinned at this response. "So you'll do it?"

"Absolutely not."


	15. Dark Chocolate and Bananas

Chapter 15  
Dark Chocolate and Bananas

Even though she was not expected to work the next day, Kiyuku didn't stay over with her family. Instead, more frustrated than when she'd first arrived, she robbed her parents of some bananas and dark chocolate and headed back to inner Seireitei. Rather than being at his Manor this evening, Byakuya had said he'd be in the sixth squad's barracks – and in a huff, that was where she went.

Opening the door to his private quarters, Byakuya didn't seem surprised to find Kiyuku there, though he eyed the material bag she carried with some suspicion. "And?"

"My father won't do it. He called it mischievous."

Byakuya shook his head. "I had a feeling he might."

"Then why did you suggest I go ask him in the first place?" Kiyuku swept past and Byakuya closed the door.

"I assumed that he would listen to you."

Setting the bag down on a tabletop, Kiyuku emptied it of its contents – five bananas, a carefully wrapped slab of dark chocolate. She felt Byakuya watching and, when she turned back to look at him, had a feeling that he was amused. "My father tends not to take me very seriously. It might have been better for you to have gone yourself."

Byakuya shrugged. "Had I realised you were so incompetent, I would have."

Kiyuku felt her face drop in response to this. The audacity! And he said it with such indifference. Had she not been a noble, she would have thrown something at him – even if the nearest object were a banana.

Then, even more shockingly, Byakuya smiled. A slight twitch of his lips that stunned Kiyuku. "That was a joke," he said.

"Oh." Kiyuku closed her hanging mouth, narrowed her eyes. "Good one. My sides are absolutely aching."

"Sarcasm doesn't suit you."

When asked about the curious items she'd brought into his quarters, Kiyuku declared with excitement that they would constitute dinner. Byakuya rejected the idea, but Kiyuku simply ignored him. "Do you have a stove of some sort?"

"Whether I do or don't is of no consequence."

"So you do then? Wonderful. Please would you go melt this," she thrust the chocolate into his hands. "And please bring me two bowls."

It had been a number of weeks now – nine, maybe ten weeks? – since that first dinner they'd had and, despite more and more frequent visits, Byakuya continued to fail in serving dessert. After the captain's meeting that day and the fruitless attempts at her father's assistance, Kiyuku refused to go without something sweet to calm the soul. Since Byakuya was sharing in her company – albeit, perhaps half-reluctantly – she _would _make him eat with her. Fortunately he did not refuse the instructions given and went about completing them in silence.

With cut up banana and a deep bowl of melted chocolate, Kiyuku showed Byakuya what her intentions for the strange combination were. Skewer the banana. Dip it in chocolate. Sprinkle it with nuts, which Byakuya had provided of his own volition.

"It's something I saw in the human world once. They called it a rather odd name which I can't remember," Kiyuku explained before eating her completed creation. "Have one."

"Why have you chosen to make me this?" Byakuya raised an eyebrow at the bowls before him.

"I didn't make it for you," Kiyuku corrected. "However, I seem to recall you enjoying bananas…" where exactly she recalled such a thing from, though, was a mystery, "…so I assumed you would like this."

"Chocolate is not something I enjoy."

"This is dark chocolate. It's not as sweet," she said, dipping another banana and placing it in his bowl. "Just have one."

For a moment, Byakuya considered the thing before him – the unfamiliar combination of ingredients, the sticky spread of the chocolate as it cooled and solidified – and Kiyuku considered him. It was only in those seconds that she realised how unusually out-of-her-shell she was behaving and how very annoying it must have been. She was ready to apologise, thought that perhaps she should leave, when Byakuya picked the banana up with his fingers and placed it in his mouth.

Kiyuku blinked once and then twice again, watching him as he chewed. "_And_?"

"It's acceptable," Byakuya shrugged and licked the chocolate off his fingertips.

It was actually quite an attractive thing to see. Kiyuku bit the inside of her cheek and, shocked to realise that she was staring, looked away. "You're not supposed to eat it with your fingers though."

"I won't use a chopstick for this. It looks unrefined."

She shrugged, still looking away. "Do what you will, Kuchiki-taichou"

For the bananas and chocolate being merely 'acceptable', Byakuya ate more than what Kiyuku had originally anticipated – and each time, he would lick his fingers more deliberately. Slower and more vigorously. It was distracting, irksome, and Kiyuku couldn't focus on her own bananas because of it. Whether or not he was doing it on purpose she couldn't decide, though there was no reason she could think of as to why Byakuya would intentionally be making his fingers sticky. Other than, perhaps, to make her face go red. Apparently as a teenager Byakuya had teased her sisters about the way they'd blushed at anything and everything; Kiyuku supposed it was possible that he never outgrew the tendency.

Assuming it was fairly late, she looked at the door in surprise when there came a knocking.

"Excuse me, Kuchiki-taichou," Abarai Renji said, opening the door, "I have the reports from Rukia that you asked for and wanted to…" He stopped short at the sight of Byakuya pulling his fingers out his mouth. In a sudden state of puzzlement, Renji glanced between his own captain and Kiyuku. "My apologies, Kuchiki-taichou, Aramiya-taichou! I did not realise you were in a meeting!"

Kiyuku wanted quite badly to laugh, both at his expression and at Byakuya's resumption of stiffness.

"Leave the reports on the table, Renji. Then you are dismissed."

"Thank you, taichou."

With a quick bow and an ever growing look of incredulity, Renji scurried about before wishing them both a good night. Awkwardly, more quietly than was necessary, he closed the door before sprinting off down the corridor, obviously unaware of the fact that his footsteps echoed loudly.

Though she managed to contain her laughter, Kiyuku couldn't keep herself from smiling as she offered Byakuya the remaining pieces of banana. He turned them down and she ate them herself.


	16. Suffocate

Chapter 16  
Suffocate

It happened again: the ground ripped beneath his feet and Hisana's body crumpled. He knew it was coming. He tried to take her up in his arms, tried to make her stand, but thin as the paper walls she fell away. Tumbled and twisted and folded up like a page.

_No, Hisana! Come, Hisana – come with me! _

Then the flowers came. He was too late and the flowers grew out from her flesh in burning yellows. Faces upturned. Leaves reaching to embrace him. They were yellow until some of them were turquoise, some of them lavender. Always growing.

Treaded upon them, tore the petals. He tried to shut his eyes against the loud bloom – to shut out their scent and the muttering echoes. But they wouldn't stop. Hisana. They wouldn't leave her alone.

Into the white oblivion he tried to call her name, the tragic song once again, but still the flowers overwhelmed. Down his neck, around his chest, until they burst forth in golden fullness from his fingertips. It didn't hurt. He felt nothing at all; only the wafting patter of their touch, only the kisses on his skin. Naked. Afraid. He was afraid. Something terrible would happen.

He looked backwards. They were there. That shimmer. That horrid loveliness – and the paper was ripping. The paper was tearing. The paper was slit and gashed and destroyed. No! It couldn't be. At his feet, too, it began to wear, to grow discolored under the weight of the petals. Move. Run away. Otherwise he would fall and fall and fall.

The flowers clung to him. Roots in his skin, close now to his heart – they were growing to his heart – and he began to run. Somewhere. To nowhere, but running.

But his feet only continued to shred. To make a mess of paper and petals and the ink that grew wide and deeper around him. Why wouldn't it stop? Why wouldn't he move? Again, once more, he cried out her name; but it was different. A different wrapping of his tongue, though no sound reached his ears. A taste too sweet in his mouth.

And in a violent flash of colours he didn't know, the flowers began to suffocate him.


	17. Honour-Bound Courtesy

Chapter 17  
Honour-Bound Courtesy

Though the matter didn't come up, Byakuya could see cogs turning in Renji's head. He was good at remaining professional, at keeping his nose out of issues that didn't concern him – Byakuya appreciated this about his lieutenant. Still, there were small undulations in Renji's behaviour: mannerisms and expressions of palpable questioning. Byakuya was not in the habit of accepting casual visitors in his private quarters; Renji knew this. As such, it came as no surprise that the latter would be confused by what he had walked into the other evening – what must have appeared as some sort of tea party.

Which Byakuya supposed it was: some sort of tea party.

However, he felt no need to explain himself. Until that point, his visits with Kiyuku had been fairly formal – perhaps more familiar than Byakuya's interactions with the other captains, but still nothing for eyebrows to be raised at.

Of course though, her arrival with bananas and chocolate the other evening had been unexpected. By her display of extraversion, Byakuya had been somewhat taken aback. Certainly, Kiyuku could at times be pert – a trait once again shared by all the Aramiya sisters, though it grew more pronounced the younger the sister in question was – but she was otherwise polite and reserved. She didn't impose. She accepted invitations graciously but didn't return them, a pleasant guest but a nonexistent host. Outside of her work, Kiyuku seemed to place little effort into relationships; the more the weeks past, the more understanding Byakuya was of the request Aramiya Narime had made of him.

It was in this sense that he thought of his relationship with Kiyuku. A favour. An honour-bond courtesy in light of the bond between their families.

At least, this was the case until Byakuya considered the fact that he rather enjoyed Kiyuku's company. He'd found each of their dinners perfectly agreeable. She had intelligent opinions and philosophical views, a number quite similar to his own. Her sudden bout of sociability the other evening, while surprising, had been welcome. Byakuya even gained some pleasure from her watching the koi in the afternoons.

It fascinated him how much time she could spend in a garden. While he himself enjoyed manicured flower beds and the magnificence of his koi, Kiyuku seemed almost to lose herself completely amongst it all. A flower herself. Once, when she'd obviously thought he wasn't around, he had spotted her lying beneath the sakura trees. Though the blossoms were gone she'd been content with the leaves, staring up into them for most of the hour and not bothering to notice that Byakuya was watching her. There were also a few occasions where she'd been writing, scribbling words away with an endearing furrow in her brow. _Poetry_, she'd said. _Nothing particularly special though_.

To simply look at her was interesting in itself. Yes, she was pretty – but more than that, her face was a portrait of idiosyncrasies that demanded close attention. There were faint and oddly placed freckles along her nose; one eye was ever so slightly lighter than the other, an ounce more grey than blue; purple shadows were suspended below her eyes and didn't seem to fade. There was also a scar across her forehead, long and shimmery pink, which wasn't visible underneath her hair.

Byakuya actually knew how she'd gotten this scar: as a little girl, one of the twins had stuck an empty plant pot on her head. Without brute force the pot couldn't be removed and their mother had resorted to breaking it with a hammer. Somehow, one of the broken pieces of pot had cut into Kiyuku's head quite deeply. It was a story the Aramiyas had told Byakuya's parents with both shock and hilarity.

She didn't drink alcohol apart from plum wine. She liked warm colours. She always smelled like white blossoms or fruit. She despised most vegetables and had an irrational fear of mushrooms. Orchids were her favourite flowers because they were complicated and specific but their bloom made the effort worthwhile. Her fingers fidgeted when she was unsure of herself. Her handwriting was a combination of stylish and illegible, a sort of deformed cursive that may as well have been a slanted hieroglyphic. She bit the inside of her cheek when she blushed. She had a tendency to abandon projects that weren't perfect. Her temper was short and turbulent, but she concealed it as well as could have been expected of a noble.

Byakuya considered these things, realizing that perhaps he was taking his honour-bound courtesy too far, when Renji arrived at his office door.

"Kuchiki-taichou," he said, "I thought I should let you know that Rukia just arrived back in Soul Society. It looks like everything went smoothly with Ichigo – his powers were restored without any complications."

Byakuya nodded. "I see. Thank you. Rukia is in good health?"

"Seems so. She'll be going to the fourth squad later today for a medical, but she looked well."

"Good. Is that all?"

Renji became hesitant, clearing his throat before saying, "You also had a message earlier today from Aramiya-taichou."

Byakuya waited for him to carry on, but Renji said nothing more. Impatiently, Byakuya raised his eyebrows. "Yes? And?"

"She had to reject your dinner invitation," Renji continued, sounding embarrassed and apologetic. "There is business in Rukongai that she'll be attending to with some of the other lieutenants."

"I see." Byakuya, annoyed that the message hadn't been relayed to him first, closed the documents on his desk and stared into the flushing face of his lieutenant. "Don't look so perturbed, Renji."

"S-sorry, taichou!" he stuttered.

"For the sake of transparency, I should let you know that my meetings with Aramiya-taichou are related to matters of noble-concern. There's no need for you to seem so uncomfortable."

"Yes, taichou. Thank you for clarifying – but I'm not uncomfor…"

"You can leave now, Renji."

Renji, albeit a bit confused, looked relieved and left the office quickly. While the said noble nature of Byakuya and Kiyuku's relationship perhaps wasn't entirely convincing, Byakuya figured that it would at least be enough to cast some sort of composure over his lieutenant's awkwardness. He wasn't concerned about the spread of rumours – Renji wasn't stupid enough to try it – but also did not want his relationship with Kiyuku to become an object of speculation. There was enough gossip for Soul Society to sip on without either of them becoming involved.


	18. The Public Bath

Chapter 18  
The Public Bath

"Kiyuku-chan!"

Kiyuku was reorganizing her calendar when Kyoraku-taichou entered the office. Since the captain's meeting a week ago, she hadn't seen nor spoken to her former captain. The silence wasn't intentional, she was just very busy, but there was also no denying a certain amount of annoyance at his presence – a sense of betrayal still lingered in her stomach; disbelief and distress over his stance on Kurosaki Ichigo.

"Kyoraku-taichou," Kiyuku said, standing to greet him, "It's nice to see you."

"Likewise. I haven't heard from you in a while," he smiled at her, tipping his hat. It had always bothered Kiyuku that he didn't remove it indoors. "Your orchids look magnificent."

"They seem very happy in here. The airflow is good."

"Yes. Airflow." He hummed. "Would you like to get some air?"

Kiyuku raised an eyebrow at him. Kyoraku-taichou seemed to be making a habit of taking her for walks every few weeks, tearing her away from her work and reminding her that sunshine existed and that she ought to 'relax a little'. Usually, she didn't mind. She admired him hugely and enjoyed the company even if he was rather too shameless. But this time round, she was not in the mood. "Thank you, taichou. But I can't today."

"Are you sure? It's a beautiful day."

"_No_, thank you, taichou."

He tilted his head, regarding her as one would a small animal. "Is everything alright, Kiyuku-chan? You seem rather out of sorts."

She debated telling him what was wrong – scolding him for his foolhardy decisions and forcing him to change his mind about Kurosaki Ichigo. For someone so discerning, so full of integrity and sense, she couldn't understand the nonchalance of his stance on an issue so fundamentally offensive. But, faced with his good-natured concern, Kiyuku couldn't bring herself to bring it up.

"Yes. I'm fine. Work has been making me tired." Which wasn't a lie.

At this, Kyoraku-taichou nodded, leaning over the desk to put a hand on her shoulder. It was heavy, comforting, bringing with it a smell of wood and smoke and sake. "Why do I always need to remind you to take it easy?" he sighed wistfully.

"That's your own choice. I never asked you to do that."

"True," he chuckled. "You may be a captain now, but I'll always feel responsible for you. Have to look out for my Kiyuku-chan."

Indeed, shameless. But he reminded Kiyuku of her father – in some odd way – and because of that she felt it impossible to stay irritated for much longer. Inwardly, she scolded herself for being such a pushover. "I appreciate your concern. But it's really not necessary."

"Oh? So you've made some plans to relax after all this hard work you've been doing?"

She hadn't and didn't see how that was relevant; but somehow Kiyuku felt it was necessary to agree that her schedule was jam-packed with fun activities. Otherwise she'd be proving no point at all. To her horror, though, she said without thinking, "I was going to go to the bathhouse this afternoon."

"Really now? Kiyuku-chan of the noble Aramiya clan uses the public baths?" Kyoraku-taichou questioned with mirth.

Kiyuku felt her face begin to burn. No. Aramiya Kiyuku certainly did _not _use the public baths. "Yes. All the time."

"I see. Well then," he winked, "I'll see you there."

Wishing her a good morning, Kyoraku-taichou left. Despite the joke in his statement – or, at least, what Kiyuku hoped was a joke – her afternoon now felt irrevocably bound to the promise of a steamy and uncomfortable outing. It wasn't so much the idea of the bath itself that unsettled her; as anyone would, she enjoyed the ritual stillness and the heat. The fact of having to share such a bath with _other people_, on the other hand, was gross and unnerving and would be anything but good for her health. It was this fact that drove her to leave the barracks early – at an hour which saw most Shinigami at the peak of their work – with the expectation that she would be able to spend at least the majority of the bath she had unwittingly committed to on her own.

Indeed, when Kiyuku slid open the door to the bath, there was no one. Only the hazy ghosts of steam, the quiet lapping of the water. Kiyuku removed her yukata with half a sense of relief, folding it neatly into a basket outside the door and stepping into the room's humidity. She always washed herself in cold water first – cold enough for her hands to quiver and fade from white to an ominous purple, so that afterwards the bath felt searing rather than simply warm – and clipped her hair into a loosely wound roll. In the private baths of her family's manor, Kiyuku also liked to stretch before climbing in. Now, however, there was too much risk of some naked stranger arriving while she was touching her toes and so she thought it would perhaps be best to skip this particular part.

In the bath, she slipped in up to her neck, relishing the smooth heat as it coated her limbs, her stomach, her chest. Carried by the water, heartbeats throbbed in her ears and at the very tips of her fingers. Her arms floated mindlessly; her eyes closed and drifted open and closed again. After some time, she thought she would doze off – a public bath perhaps wasn't so bad when there was no one else around.

Except, just then, the door behind her slid open once again.

Alert, the lethargic buoyancy of her limbs suddenly dissipating, Kiyuku snapped her head around to consider the intruder – at first simply a grey and hazy silhouette behind the steam, a sort of apparition that made Kiyuku think she could have been dreaming. Soon enough, though, a voluptuous outline solidified and Kiyuku recognised the wide, womanly features staring back at her.

"Matsumoto-fukutaichou!"

"Taichou!" Matsumoto cried in return. "I didn't know you used this bathhouse."

"Well…" Kiyuku began, feeling herself shrink away in her nakedness. "I don't. This is a first for me. But I was just about to leave."

"Ah! Taichou, please stay! It's so nice to have company – no one ever comes to the bathhouse at this time." Matsumoto seated herself on the shower stool, back perfectly erect as her hair tumbled down in dramatic blonde locks.

"That's because, at this time, they're supposed to be working."

The statement was supposed to be directed at Matsumoto, but it appeared to go over her head. Instead, with the long-limbed grace of mythological caliber, she began to rinse herself. "Everybody always works so hard. Work, work, work. Luckily some of us know how to kick back and relax. Am I right, taichou?" A giggle like popping bubbles.

Kiyuku didn't reply. Were it not for the way Matsumoto's eyes had locked onto her, she would have gotten out the bath and left with her dignity intact. But now, feeling unconfident and waifish in the shadow of Matsumoto's buxom existence, lacking a towel with which to conceal herself, Kiyuku could only shrivel deeper into the hot water.

"This is the best time to come to the bathhouse. In the evenings it gets _so _busy and you can't find any space for yourself," Matsumoto chattered, running her fingers deftly through her soaked hair. So crowded. So noisy. So on and so forth. "Oh, and of course that's when all the guys from the eleventh squad come and peak at all of the women!"

"_What_?"

"Didn't you know, taichou? You made the right choice coming now rather than later. Otherwise you would have had some eyes on those cute boobies of yours!"

"Matsumoto!" Even against the heat of the water, Kiyuku could feel her face explode into lively redness. "That's not an appropriate thing to say to your superior!"

Matsumoto only giggled again, holding her hands up in teasing submission. "Sorry! Sorry – I just can't help myself sometimes."

Hair in a massive bun atop her head, she sauntered over to the bath and dipped herself in with an unusual grace that Kiyuku could only think to describe as raw. Though she had always seen herself as being fairly graceful – to be so was expected from noble girls and women, after all – watching Matsumoto was like watching art move amongst mere mortals. Every slight twitch, each sway and tilt: it was all deliberate and yet so superbly natural.

"What are you staring at, taichou?" Matsumoto cooed.

"Nothing."

Kiyuku wondered whether Matsumoto's breasts would make it easier for her to float across water. Like something inflatable.

The two of them sat in silence, interrupted only by Matsumoto's occasional sighs of delight. In spite of herself, Kiyuku began to settle down once more, affected by her companion's unfazed openness and pleasure as though it had seeped into the water.

"You don't talk very much, taichou."

"Don't I?"

Matsumoto shook her head, lips pursed and thoughtful. "Are you the shy type?"

"No. I just try to stay professional."

She laughed. "_Professional_. It makes sense. But I can't imagine what you and Kuchiki-taichou must talk about when you're both so _professional_."

Kiyuku, whose eyes had been closed, opened them to stare at Matsumoto. "Pardon me?"

"Oh! Is it a secret?" Matsumoto's shoulders jumped excitedly as she leaned forward, suddenly close enough for Kiyuku to see the flecks of blonde in her eyelashes. "Exciting! I'm very good at keeping secrets, taichou."

Somehow, Kiyuku believed her. "I'm not really sure what you're referring to though, Matsumoto." Yachiru must have told her about the koi.

"You and Kuchiki-taichou! Renji told Shuhei and me that you were in his private quarters last week – nobody goes into Kuchiki-taichou's private quarters except when there's an emergency. Renji said you two were eating bananas!"

"_Oh_." Kiyuku bit her cheek, exhaling loudly. "It's not what you think."

"You can be honest, taichou! I won't tell anyone!" Matsumoto, shockingly, pressed her hands to her breasts. "That's why my boobs are so big, taichou: they're full of secrets."

"That's…" Kiyuku began, only to be cut short by her own laughter, "...that's an interesting expression."

"I heard something like it once in the human world," Matsumoto smiled proudly. "Please, taichou, tell me your secret! It's so cruel of you to dangle such thrilling news before our noses and then not give us any details."

"But there's nothing for me to tell. It's all…" Kiyuku thought for a moment about what 'it' actually was. "It's all noble business. As members of the Noble Clans, Kuchiki-taichou and I have some mutual interests – that's it."

Matsumoto began to look disheartened. "But what about the bananas?"

"Kuchiki-taichou likes bananas. Abarai-fukutaichou just happened upon us at the wrong moment."

"Ah, so boring, taichou!"

Once again in spite of herself, Kiyuku giggled – and felt rather pleased too; Matsumoto's disappointed face was not nearly as lovely as one would expect. "Sorry. I don't mean to be boring."

In the end, Kiyuku stayed in the public bath with Matsumoto until their fingers were thoroughly pruned. Moving on to topics more interesting than a nonexistent romance, the two of them spoke about the Association's pool that was near completion, about flowers and about their favourite snack foods. Matsumoto commented once more on Kiyuku's tendency of talking too little; Kiyuku replied by saying that she didn't have the same skills as Matsumoto in talking too much. Then, when the thought of the eleventh squad's prying eyes became too much for her, Kiyuku scurried out, feeling overall more satisfied with the excursion than she had first expected to be.


	19. Precarious

Chapter 19  
Precarious

Sitting by the sakura trees had become part of their dinnertime routine. There was still never any dessert and Kiyuku had learned not to complain about it – but drinks out in the garden, moon-bathed and cool, seemed to act as an acceptable substitute. Since realizing that Kiyuku didn't like sake, Byakuya had started putting to use his stores of plum wine; it was rather too sweet for him personally, but he was glad to be opening the bottles he'd amassed over the years. Even if she was the only one he was opening them for.

She always sipped at the wine painfully slowly. Slow enough that by the time Byakuya was onto a second cup of sake – which in itself didn't happen very quickly – she was usually only halfway finished. It made sense that she would be deliberate in not drinking too much too quickly though, being the size of a tall child and having a metabolism that was in constant overdrive.

Glass held in her lap, Kiyuku looked out into the garden and drew quiet, slow breaths. Her captain's haori was inside, draped over a chair, and without it she looked quite different: less austere, much more vulnerable. Perhaps it was in the narrowness of her shoulders, the delicate curve of her neck, even the flimsiness of her wrists – all of those finer features usually hidden by the haori, drowned out by the mass of heavy material. When she lifted the glass to drink, her lips were taut around the rim like a kiss.

Byakuya, considering her out the corner of his eye, cleared his throat before asking, "How are the plans for your sister's wedding coming along?"

"Aniko keeps changing her mind about everything," Kiyuku rolled her eyes.

"It's hardly two months away."

"I know," she hummed. "But between my mother and my other sisters, they'll pull something together and it will be beautiful. Frankly, I'm more concerned about my kimono for the wedding than anything else."

"What's wrong with it?"

"It doesn't exist."

Byakuya was going to say that two months wasn't nearly enough time to make a kimono – not one worthy of an Aramiya – when Kiyuku added, "I'm considering just wearing my haori."

At her tone, Byakuya raised his eyebrows. "You sound hesitant."

"My sisters say that you and I would look too much like a matched set." She bit the inside of her cheek before drinking again from the wine.

Absurd to think that he could be matched with someone so girlish and quick-tempered. Still, the thought amused him somewhat. "I could wear something else."

"That's about as likely as me taking another one of your calligraphy classes." Kiyuku looked at him, an endearing smirk snaking itself into her lips.

True enough – Byakuya had a wide selection of formal kimonos but hardly ever used any of them, preferring the ease and image of his captain's haori. He was certain that a room's worth of kimonos stood unused at Aramiya Manor as well, worn once and never to be seen again. "Well what kind of kimono do you think you'll be able to get hold of in two months?" he said with half a sense of sarcasm.

Kiyuku seemed to play with her answer, pursing her lips into a thin and pensive line before answering seriously, "I actually wanted something pink."

"Pink? I wouldn't have pinned you as someone who liked pink." Looking at her though, pink was the perfect colour.

She shrugged. "It's not what I'd usually choose. But either way, there doesn't seem to be a nice pink silk in all of Soul Society. I'm going to have to reconsider my options."

"You'll have to reconsider quickly."

"Yes. We wouldn't want to look like a matched pair," Kiyuku said, the teasing glimmer in her eyes appearing once again. "Speaking of which, I ran into Matsumoto-fukutaichou the other day. She seems to think that there's something going on between us."

"You've been coming here a lot. People are bound to think things." Byakuya took a sip from his sake. Frankly, he himself thought that Kiyuku was perhaps becoming rather too comfortable with him – and he with her. Publicly they paid each other a noticeable amount of attention; it wasn't what one would call _a lot _of attention, considering neither of them were particularly demonstrative, but it was enough for suspicions to flare. Privately, they were balanced on a precarious slope. The cover of darkness and the taste of alcohol, even in small doses, were a breeding ground for intimacies Byakuya was not eager to entertain. He could not deny that Kiyuku's company was a pleasure. He imagined that soon enough he would grow to be fond of her in the flat, platonic sense. But beyond that, things were too problematic and messy.

"Just to be clear, _you've _been invitingme here," Kiyuku established, finishing her wine at last. "Regardless, though, it's ridiculous that people should think anything."

"I'm sure you'd think the same things in someone else's position." Byakuya considered refilling her glass, but decided against it.

"No. I certainly wouldn't."

"How can you be so sure?"

She didn't look at him, blinking once and then twice again into the evening's obscurity as her features fell into a hard, carved mask. Tight lips. Tensed jaw. Somehow, too, she became even paler – Byakuya didn't think that such a shade of white was even possible.

"Well?"

Still staring out, Kiyuku spoke in a low and penetrating voice. "You lost your wife. It's cruel that people should expect you to fall in love again."

Hisana. The thought of her sent a pang through his entire being. And Kiyuku – though she wouldn't turn to him, Byakuya watched her intently. Her chest rising and falling. Her face as it gave off a thousand expressions that Byakuya didn't understand. It was hard to tell why her words provoked him so. "Love isn't cruel," he said at last.

"Perhaps not. But people are."

"Will you ever fall in love?" he asked. The question startled him, falling from his tongue without any thought.

Eyes narrowed and hard, Kiyuku finally returned Byakuya's gaze. Her words came out, three perfectly coherent syllables that carried a profound sense of finality, "I hope not."

And with that, they said nothing more, sitting in preoccupied silence until Kiyuku eventually rose to leave. Byakuya walked her out, watched with an ever growing feeling of dissatisfaction as she left into the streets and passageways of Seireitei. Love was not a topic he had ever discussed – hardly even with Hisana. To have had such a conversation coaxed out of him was an impeccable example of the risk in which he and Kiyuku found themselves. Things happened to evolve without warning. Quickly and recklessly, ever harder to control. Kiyuku seemed to know it as well as he did; so much was clear in her hesitancy, in the hard and somehow lovely twists of her face.

Yet, despite the hollow feeling in his gut, Byakuya did not feel any inclination to put a stop to things. As it stood, there was not a single Shinigami whose company he would have welcomed more. Let the gossips of Seireitei have their say – such talk tended to fade as quickly as it appeared.


	20. Mina

**A/N: Hello everybody! To those of you who have read up to this point, thank you thank you **_**thank you**_**! This is a story that I've been wanting to write forever now and I am so excited to have gotten this far. I hope that you have all enjoyed it as well! Please leave a review to let me know what you think. Byee! ^-^  
**

Chapter 20  
Mina

Of all the sisters, Kiyuku and Mina were the most alike. According to their mother, it was the pattern of contradictions in their temperaments, the little blossoms of irony that existed in their ways of being. When Mina was a little girl, she had liked dolls and dress up but was just as fond of rolling in the mud and climbing trees; Kiyuku had always been gentle as a butterfly but would have happily played rough-and-tumble with the boys. Both of them bore exquisite poise but fostered horrendous tempers. Neither of them felt any particular need for friendships but, when such an opportunity presented itself, they dove in much too deep much too quickly. All-or-nothing kind of creatures.

Their father had referred to raising them as both a beautiful and immensely frustrating ordeal – and he'd spent many a night fretting over the type of husbands they would bring home.

In the comfort of Mina's cottage, built on the far end of the Manor for herself and her husband, everything was soft and clean and shimmering. Unlike the twins' bedrooms, which lay in an unchanging state of disarray and confusion much like their father's study, Mina had a place for everything. In all things, it was the first lesson she taught her boys: _put it back where it belongs_.

From a fine china pot, she poured herself and Kiyuku freshly steeped tea.

"It's so nice to be doing this. We don't get to spend enough time together anymore, just the two of us," Mina said, her hands moving deftly across the table over all the teatime wares.

Kiyuku agreed smilingly. "I'm very busy being a Shinigami and you're even busier being a mom."

"Oh, yes. We grow up so fast."

When Kiyuku was still very young, Mina would take her out to the markets to buy all sorts of fantastic sweets. They'd find a spot along the river or in one of the public gardens, trading candies – Mina always gave her little sister the best ones – and playing any number of games. In hindsight, Kiyuku realised it had most likely been for Mina to see a boy from the Shinigami Academy; he'd show up in his uniform, all flustered and excited, and the young Kiyuku wouldn't give the strange character a second thought. Even after the boy stopped arriving, though, Mina still took Kiyuku on other adventures and outings.

"So have you managed to find material for a kimono yet?" Mina asked, taking her tea from the table.

"Honestly, I gave up looking when Ani didn't have anything pink that first time."

"Don't be so silly."

Kiyuku shook her head, sighing. "I did look around a little bit but there was nothing I liked, and I've got too much work at the moment. There's no time to do anymore hunting for silks."

"What are you going to do then? It's not long now until the wedding."

"So I've been told." Kiyuku blew into the tea, catching in her nose the mingling scent of berries and ginger. "As I said, I could just wear my haori."

Mina gave her a sour stare. "Mama will be so disappointed if you don't wear something pretty. You know how she likes to see us all get dressed up. _And _if you come dressed looking like a captain…"

"Yes, yes. Kuchiki-san and I will look too much like a pair. You've said so already," Kiyuku frowned.

"Actually, I was going to say that you'll be taking all Ani's attention. Our aunties and uncles and cousins will all be congratulating you on your new position when they should be congratulating the newlyweds." Mina tilted her head, raised her eyebrows. "The thing with Kuchiki-san was only a joke, you know. You shouldn't take it so seriously."

Sighing, Kiyuku set her tea cup down on the table. "Actually Mimi, may I ask you something about Kuchiki-san?"

"You already know him a bit better than I do, I think, so I'm not sure how well I'll be able to answer."

"It's not so much about Kuchiki-san himself. It's more like advice about – the sort of relationship we've developed," Kiyuku was speaking in a mutter. She began to fidget with her fingers, not wanting to refer to things with too much familiarity.

Mina, her lips rising at the corners, leaned forwards. "Go ahead."

Since Byakuya had asked her about falling in love, there'd been a dull sting in Kiyuku's stomach. She hadn't expected the conversation the other night to escalate quite as it did – more than that though, she was disconcerted by what it had stirred. There weren't words she could put to it; frankly, she didn't understand the feeling herself, but she did know it was problematic. Spending time with Byakuya was quickly becoming a favoured pastime. She liked talking to him – about inane, meaningless things like her day as well as about art, principles, ambitions – and perhaps more importantly she liked hearing him talk back. When it came to the important things, there were ripples in Byakuya's demeanor, a near imperceptible rising and falling in his voice that Kiyuku quickly realised were telltale signs of emotion. Like her blushing, only much more subtle – but in this way it had become clear that Byakuya was not as levelheaded as he seemed.

He liked spicy foods. The corner of his mouth twitched when he was irritated or amused. He told terrible jokes. He looked in her eyes intently when they spoke, though Kiyuku sometimes got the feeling that he wasn't listening so much as he was trying to figure out exactly what shades of blue her eyes were. She liked knowing such odd, irrelevant things – and it had started to unnerve her.

"We've been spending a lot of time together," she told Mina, "and I'm worried that we might be getting a little too friendly."

Her older sister's eyebrows knitted themselves together in thought. "As in, friend-friendly or _other_-friendly?"

"Friend-friendly – but people think it's other-friendly and I don't want them to think that."

"What does Kuchiki-san have to say about it?"

Kiyuku thought about Byakuya's nonchalance on the matter. "He doesn't seem to be bothered."

"Then you shouldn't be either," Mina gave her a stunning, motherly smile. Leaning back onto her hands, she looked like the epitome of domestic calm. "I see no reason why you should worry about what some gossips have to say. You're both adults – you can choose how and with whom you want to spend your time."

"But Mimi, it's not only what people have to say about it." Kiyuku felt her face becoming pink. "I don't really know how appropriate is that we give each other such attention, even if it is totally platonic."

"Just stop visiting then."

Kiyuku could tell that Mina was not really serious in her suggestion. Still, it sent a shock of displeasure down Kiyuku's throat. "But I like Kuchiki-san."

Mina laughed, loudly and without any concern of it being unflattering. "I can tell – and Kuku, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. You're overthinking things. Just enjoy the new friend you've made. I know thousands of women around the Seireitei would die or killto have Kuchiki Byakuya as their bestie."

"I mean, you really don't need to put it that way," Kiyuku picked up her tea and drew a long sip. Despite her choice of words, Mina was right. There was no harm in being around Byakuya – not really. Kiyuku knew she was overthinking things, but somehow still couldn't shake the unsettled feeling.

"Mama and Papa will be thrilled to hear you've finally made a friend," Mina grinned.

"Please don't tell them. Mama will probably feel bad that I came to you instead of to her."

"Why didyou come to me, actually?"

"I figured you would probably understand better than anyone else. The twins would have made too much of a big deal and I'm sure Mama and Papa would have advised me against getting too close."

"Ah," Mina smirked, "so you came to me because you knew I would tell you what you wanted to hear."

Both of them giggled. "Something like that."

"Well can I tell you something else?" Mina didn't wait for Kiyuku to answer. "If something of the romantic sort were to happen between you and Kuchiki-san, there would be nothing wrong with _that _either. I think you'd make a very cute couple."

"Don't tease me, Mimi."

"I'm quite serious. I actually half-wanted you two to look the same at the wedding – it would have been a charming picture. More importantly, though, you'd be a much better wife to Kuchiki-san than Hisana was," Mina sipped her tea, ignoring Kiyuku's horrified glare.

"You better not say that in front of Papa. He would tear your throat out!" Kiyuku squeaked.

"You overestimate him. He might scold me for being so bold, but he'd also agree. You know what he always told Mama about Hisana."

The four of them – Mina, Chiyo, Aniko and Kiyuku – had eavesdropped many times on their parents' conversations, catching their father spouting things he wouldn't be caught dead saying otherwise. He'd once called Hisana a street urchin, said some shocking things about Byakuya's choice to marry her. Chiyo had cried at the realization that their father could be so cruel. Kiyuku bit her lip, watching Mina shrug off the memory.

"Well," Kiyuku said, suddenly resolute, "It doesn't matter anyway. I'm not planning to become any man's wife, yet alone Kuchiki-san's."

There crossed through Mina's eyes a spirited glimmer. "I always said the same thing, remember?"

"Your situation was slightly different."

It was true. Though Mina had been interested in lots of boys, the one from the Shinigami Academy being just a single face in a long line of fleeting romances, she'd always maintained that she would never get married. She would inherit the Aramiya household and run it alone, a solitary queen who needed no man. But she was responsible for providing an heir. She _had _to get married – their parents were very vehement on this point. Though they hardly forced things upon Kiyuku or the twins, Mina was a different story: the eldest, the next-in-line, she carried several extra burdens that Kiyuku would likely never understand. There'd been many shouting matches between Mina and their parents. Many arguments and objections and tears. Mina was as stubborn as their father and as opinionated as their mother, and it was likely for the sake of defying them that she didn't want to get married. So when the day came that they arranged a marriage for her – at the Kuchikis' suggestion, funnily enough – Kiyuku had thought her sister would just about die. The boy they'd chosen was from a noble family of course, though not one of the higher four, and was as unfazed by everything as he was skinny; Mina hadn't been able to stand the sight of him. Yet, through some miracle, by the time their wedding arrived she was head-over-heels in love. Their mother had cried so much – from relief as well as a certain amount of heartache at the strife the arrangement had caused – that she seemed to rid herself of every tear she could and would ever shed.

Mina waved away Kiyuku's statement with a feminine flick of her wrist. "Perhaps. But even so. If you should end up developing more-than-friendly feelings for Kuchiki-san, don't try and dig yourself out of it. That'll only make you like him more."

"But Hisana…"

"Isn't around anymore."

"How can you say that so unfeelingly?" Kiyuku's fingers continued to fiddle and squirm.

Mina sighed. "It's sad what happened, of course, but in my opinion Kuchiki-san should be allowed to move on. Hisana didn't love him – don't try and argue with me, you know it as well as I do. She may have been very sweet and in another life I'm sure we all would have gotten along perfectly well but she was selfish to have married Kuchiki-san when she didn't love him like he loved her. And that's all apart from the fact that she wasn't a noble."

"You're very passionate about this, Mimi."

"I may not be besties with him like you are, but I believe that Kuchiki-san deserves love just as much as the rest of us do."

Kiyuku felt the word on tongue. _Love_. A concept. A vague apparition. A myriad of complications. She tried to imagine what it would be like to love someone – to love Byakuya. What was it to love someone like that?

"I'm trying very hard not to laugh at you Kuku, but you're so red you're putting your hair to shame." Mina held her hand in front of her mouth, making a show of stifling her giggles.

It was before Kiyuku could respond that there came from the door a torrent of sharp and vigorous knocks. A familiar pair of voices followed: "Mimi! Is Kiyuku still there? We need here! It's important! Let us in! Mimi! _Mina_!" Knock, knock, knock.

"Their timing is always impeccable," Mina said upon an exasperated sigh, rising from her cushion in an elegant flourish to let the twins in.

No time at all passed before the three of them appeared back in the lounge, Chiyo and Aniko looking as though they had been blown in by a heavy gust of wind. Aniko held a tape measure, its length dangling from her hand in bent, unruly spirals.

"We were just heading out to your barracks to see you," Chiyo began.

Aniko continued, "But Mama told us that you were here with Mimi."

"Thank goodness!" exclaimed Chiyo.

"We need to get your measurements, and we need them _now_."

Kiyuku, feeling blustered by the sudden barrage of statements, moved her gaze between the twins. They looked manic, eyes wide and chests heaving – had they run here? "What for?" Kiyuku asked.

"Silly! For your kimono!" Aniko waved her hands as though Kiyuku's question were the most absurd thing in the world.

"But I haven't found any material yet," Kiyuku objected.

The three of them – Chiyo, Aniko and Mina – exchanged a series of glances which seemed to suggest the twins hadn't been properly prepared for this meeting.

"Well…"

"Umm."

"Chi and Ani have been shopping. They found the perfect pink for you and are going to send it off to the seamstress immediately," Mina explained, much calmer than her younger counterparts. "We have no time to waste."

Not entirely convinced by this explanation but happy to oblige nonetheless, Kiyuku removed her outer layers of clothing and allowed the twins to twist her up in their measuring tape.

"You've lost weight around your waist!"

"But your boobs are bigger!"

"It's like all the nonsense you eat is going straight to your chest and nowhere else." At this, both Chiyo and Aniko pouted. "No fair!"

Mina only watched, a slight and suspicious smile crawling across her lips.


	21. Shinigami Women's Association (II)

Chapter 21  
Shinigami Women's Association (II)

The pool was a disaster. After months of secret planning and supposedly secret building, the Shinigami Women's Association's newest project had been promptly destroyed. At first, it had shocked Kiyuku and the other members – Matsumoto couldn't believe that Byakuya, who was responsible for the pool's demise, had found it; Yachiru referred to him as being a 'big meanie' for having decimated their newest hangout spot with his Senbonzakura. However, after Nemu took them all to the site of the massacre where they'd stood surrounded by fractured concrete and a soaked expanse of lawn, it was no longer so shocking.

"You built the pool in the middle of his garden!" Nanao later pointed out, trying to make it clear to the likes of Nemu and Yachiru why the idea had failed so tremendously.

"My apologies," Nemu said, robotic and calculating. "Next time I'll make sure it can withstand an attack from Kuchiki-taichou."

"That's not the problem!"

Most of the Women's Association members had gathered in their secret meeting room to discuss the dilemma. The pool had been an integral part of their plans and budget for the coming year. What was to be done now? A new pool would have to be built, of course. But where? And how? Many frustrated hums sounded around the group.

Kiyuku chewed silently on the tea snacks while the others debated and deliberated. Byakuya, aware of Kiyuku's involvement in the Women's Association, was not going to be impressed with her – although, to be fair, she hadn't known how his garden would suffer at the hands of Nemu's building prowess – and she was considering avoiding him for a while. They were supposed to go for a walk that evening. She'd bought salted caramel sweets for him to try; he probably wouldn't be in the mood for that. She'd write him an apology note and postpone.

From amongst the tittering voices, Kiyuku heard Unohana say in her distinctively icy-warm way, "I understand your problem."

All heads turned to listen, both interested and intimidated, as Unohana suggested visiting a beach in the human world.

Yachiru leaped from her spot, body stiff with sheer joy as she giggled shrilly like a bird in the early hours. "Yay! The beach! The Beach!" she exclaimed. "Let's do it!"

Kiyuku tapped her fingers against the table. She'd taken several trips to the human world but had never been to the beach – when on missions with Matsumoto and some of the other female lieutenants, they'd gone into shops selling costumes and sandals and sarongs, but that was as close to beachiness as she'd come. _Sun, Sand, Sea, _she'd once heard said of the particular location. The thought was an unappealing one. Kiyuku was not a strong swimmer; sand was much too messy for her tastes; and most of all, she loathed the sun with special fierceness. It was because of this hatred that she was so pale and because of her pallor that she harbored such hatred. There was no such thing as a sun-kissed shade to her skin – there was white, then there was devilish scarlet. Hell itself sounded better than a whole day under such conditions.

"Unohana-san?"

"Yes, Aramiya-san?"

"Even though the beach is a charming idea, is it really feasible?" Kiyuku prompted. "Nanao-san mentioned at the last meeting how much of our budget has already been used up…"

Unohana smiled at her – that sweet, thin-lipped smile that carried all the bloodthirsty threat in the world. "I'm sure you could pull some strings, Aramiya-san," Unohana said, and by her voice Kiyuku knew that she was not being given much of a choice.

So pulling some strings was what she did. Over the course of the following few days, Kiyuku spoke to Kyoraku-taichou – who agreed that a beach outing was a wonderful idea; he'd always thought his little Kiyuku-chan could 'use some sun' – who in turn spoke to Ukitake, who convinced the president of the Shinigami Men's Association to donate a small sum of their budget to the beach day. The only condition was that their club members be allowed to join, which none of the female Shinigami objected to. Rukia was very pleased that her captain would be getting some fresh air after his recent spell of sickness, though Kiyone was perhaps not so thrilled that Kotsubaki would be joining.

The only thing Kiyuku was concerned with was that Unohana was satisfied. The fourth squad's captain even went so far as to compliment the haste with which Kiyuku had addressed the Association's needs. "Perhaps you ought to be promoted," Unohana had said. Kiyuku hadn't realised that she was in a position to be promoted, but any hierarchy-climbing appealed to her sense of ambition.

With the strings pulled and her part of the job done, Kiyuku went that evening to Byakuya's office.

He stared at her coldly when opening the door. "Do you need something?"

"May I come in?"

"You're interrupting my work."

Kiyuku pouted, looking up at him with all the sweetness she could amass. "Are you still angry with me?" she asked, fully knowing the answer.

"Your fun-club ruined a number of my flower beds."

"Actually, they took care not to touch your flower beds. _You _were the one who decided to make a mess by using your zanpakuto," Kiyuku corrected. "I did tell you though that I had no idea your garden was under threat. Otherwise I would have stopped the plans immediately."

The corner of Byakuya's mouth did an agitated jump. He glowered at her for a long time before finally gesturing for her to enter.

"How much work do you have lined up for next week?" she questioned, seating herself on Byakuya's settee while he made her tea.

"Why do you ask?"

"The Women's Association is planning an outing. I'd like it if you would come," Kiyuku broached the subject gently. Like her, she couldn't imagine Byakuya would be very fond of the beach, but having him there would make the whole experience so much more bearable.

"I doubt I'd enjoy any such outing."

"You can't be certain. Besides, consider it the Association's way of making up for the fact that we built a pool in your garden," she smiled.

Placing her tea on the table, Byakuya regarded her fixedly. Kiyuku could smell him – a clean, distantly citrusy smell; it made her want to sink endlessly into his haori.

"What sort of outing are they planning?" Byakuya queried at last.

Kiyuku refused to answer until she had his promise that he would join. If he wouldn't go then neither would she, though she kept this particular sentiment to herself. With a relenting sigh, Byakuya agreed; Kiyuku knew he was one to keep his promises, and so was not disheartened when he insulted the Association's beach idea.


	22. The Beach (I)

Chapter 22  
The Beach (I)

Having never been faced with a decision regarding swimming costumes in her life, Kiyuku was quickly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choice. Bikini; monokini; sport suit; wetsuit; long line, high neck, tie fronts. They all sounded like specimens from Kurostuchi's lab. In such an hour of need, Kiyuku missed Hinamori – the lieutenant had adjusted herself swimmingly to Kiyuku's preferences and had proven herself to be thoroughly valuable in day-to-day decisions, both professionally and otherwise. Also being more clued up on real-world terminologies, Hinamori would probably have picked out the ideal swimsuit for Kiyuku in a matter of minutes.

Matsumoto made valiant attempts. "What about this one, taichou? This top would look so cute on you. You have the perfect figure for this one! Oh, but the colour makes you look even paler than you already are. Oh! But what about…" Still to no avail.

For a brief and welcome few moments, however, Kiyuku's attention was ripped from the shelves of skimpy swimwear when a particular customer joined them in the store. Supple, dark limbs and an ever present grin as piercing as her aura – the woman was unmistakable. "Yoruichi-san!"

Shihouin Yoruichi, somehow more stunning than all those years ago, had been Kiyuku's first female icon. She'd already been a woman ready to inherit headship of her family when Kiyuku was but a child, and yet she had spent many hours with her, playing games and racing through the streets of Seireitei. She'd been the first one to teach Kiyuku the basics of shunpo and often told stories about the Onmitsukido. Even though Kiyuku – being the upholder of noble principles as she was – should have shunned Yoruichi after the banishment, she remembered the woman too fondly to do so.

"Yo, Kuku-chan. It's been a while," Yoruichi punched her shoulder playfully. "I hear you're a captain now."

Kiyuku rarely felt starstruck but that instant happened to be one of the exceptional occasions. "Yes, Yoruichi-san. I was promoted a few months ago."

"Ha! Congrats. I hope you're doing a better job running a division than you did running races with shunpo."

"I should hope so too," she murmured.

"So, have you found a swimsuit yet or what?"

The search continued. Once Kiyuku managed to wrap her tongue around the different names of the different styles, she figured something with as much coverage as possible would be best, both to defend against the nasty rays of sunlight as well as for the sake of modesty. However, the one piece swimsuits either didn't fit Kiyuku or were uncomfortable, while the wetsuits were simply too ugly. Nanao, ever practical, suggested that Kiyuku buy herself a parasol first and then a swimsuit to match.

It was a superb idea. Kiyuku had already spotted a parasol that she liked: one in pink and yellow and turquoise. At this, the shop owner informed her enthusiastically that the colours went beautifully with her hair – and they had the perfect costume for her too! A cute bikini striped in the same pink and yellow and turquoise! Kiyuku considered the teeny proportions of said bikini with hesitation before deciding she would take it, along with the hugest white hat she had ever seen and a pair of pink sunglasses. Needless to say, she did a number of twirls in the dressing room mirror, feeling very cute in the summery ensemble.

The feeling succumbed to horror when Kiyuku realised they'd be meeting Kurosaki Ichigo on the beach.

From the safety of her open parasol she considered him closely, simultaneously surprised and disappointed to find a very average teenage boy. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting – a sort of ruffian scum look, perhaps, with piercings and scars. There was none of that, only well-muscled shoulders and a clean-faced look of disbelief as he wrapped his head around the pool-story. No one had told Kiyuku that his hair was so bright. By his notably unnoteworthy appearance, she was thoroughly irked.

"Aramiya-taichou," Rukia appeared at her side, "You and Ichigo haven't been properly introduced yet. Please allow me…"

"No." Kiyuku suspected that Rukia knew her stance on Kurosaki Ichigo and was trying to change her opinions. Maybe if she got to know Kurosaki Ichigo she would realise he wasn't so bad – it would have been a foolproof plan if Kiyuku had any inclination to 'get to know' him whatsoever. Besides, clad in the brazenly colourful bikini, Kiyuku no longer felt as cute as she did ridiculous; if she were to be meeting Kurosaki Ichigo, preferably under very different conditions, it would be in her haori. "Thank you, Rukia-san, but no."

Indeed, Rukia's features downed themselves in a momentary look of defeat but perked up again just as quickly. "Maybe later then." She began to run along the sand embankment towards the human boy. "Enjoy the beach, Aramiya-taichou!"

Despite the amount of time she'd spent at Kuchiki Manor, Kiyuku still had very little to do with Rukia. She watched her interact with Kurosaki Ichigo – so overtly familiar and teasing and relaxed that it was actually suspicious – before deciding that a tirade against them on this particular day would be unpleasant for everyone and not worth her energy. As such, she turned her attention to the beach itself.

The captains involved in this outing – herself, Unohana, Ukitake and Byakuya – had made a good call in renting the beach. It was much easier to relax, much more peaceful without the prying eyes of humans. Even the weather, mild for a summer day and calm upon the ocean, was not so bad as Kiyuku had anticipated; the sun was still a problem, but decked-out in her garb she would be able to withstand its demonic gaze for some hours. Possibly even venture into the water to cool her feet. Matsumoto was already amongst the waves, frolicking without a thought in the world toward the perilously loose ties of her bikini. Renji and the bald boy from the eleventh squad – Kiyuku forgot his name – kicked sand at each other. Yoruichi and Sui-Feng were nowhere to be seen. Kiyuku, not quite sure what to do with herself, considered taking a walk towards some of the distant rock pools.

"If you were worried about the sun, you should've worn a dress."

Kiyuku looked over her shoulder at Byakuya, taken aback by his shirtlessness before remembering that _everyone _was shirtless. He stared at her, looking quite different and much younger with his hair down.

"A dress would have been too irritating with this wind," she said, turning to face him. Eying Byakuya's torso, nearly as white as her own and carved to perfection, Kiyuku silently thanked herself for having bought sunglasses. "And the parasol is working just fine."

"So it seems. Your hat is too big, though."

"I don't mind it so much. At least my face won't burn." She gestured to his state of half-undress. "_You_, on the other hand..."

Byakuya shrugged. "Unohana-taichou has provided what she calls sunscreen."

"I've heard it's rather gross."

"Yes. It's quite," Byakuya turned up his nose, "sticky."

Kiyuku laughed. The two of them spoke about Ukitake's plans for a sand art competition – Byakuya referred to it an excellent opportunity to show off his artistic abilities; he knew exactly what sculpture he would be creating; Kiyuku said she would rather eat the sand than try to make art out of it. "I was thinking about going to have a look at those rock pools instead," she said, pointing into the distance. "There might be shells to take back to Soul Society."

Byakuya's eyes followed her finger to the rock pools as he considered her suggestion. "I'll join you."

"I was going to go when Ukitake started the competition."

"Wait for me to finish my sculpture, then we will go together. We'll be able to avoid Unohana-taichou's game of whack-the-watermelon."

Oh, yes. Kiyuku had forgotten about the watermelons. "Alright. Don't take too long though, otherwise I'll leave without you."


	23. The Beach (II)

Chapter 23  
The Beach (II)

Byakuya was not above admitting it. He liked looking at her.

Even while occupied with the sand sculpture of Wakame Ambassador – perhaps his finest work, if he said so himself – he found his attention drifting at random to Kiyuku. Pacing along the shoreline. Picking at foods from the Beach Shack. Up to her ankles in the ocean, staring hard as the water gathered around her feet and retreated away. Once or twice, Byakuya caught her watching him as well, those curious blue eyes shifting between the sculpture and himself.

He'd known she was pale; between that and her hair, it was the first thing one would notice. However, now that she stood near completely bared to the elements, she was the most pristine colour he had ever seen. It was not a pallour tinged by the grey of deficiency or the blue of sickness, but a smooth, milky white. Lily petals. Cream. Darkened in places – her calf, along her ribs – by bruises like shocking purple ink stains: the adornments of careless sparring with her officers.

Her legs were bandy, her hipbones sharp. She wasn't immediately muscular, being small, but there was a fine shape to her arms, a strong curve to her back.

The obnoxious brightness of her costume and parasol made it possible for Byakuya to spot her from a mile away – which was fortunate, because she'd started walking without him and was already far gone along the beach. Stooping often to admire the sand, dipping her feet into the water, Kiyuku seemed to be meandering, perhaps waiting for him to come after her. In a steady rush, Byakuya finished smoothing the edges of his sculpture and etched in the details of its face. He stepped back to admire it for some seconds, pleased with his own handiwork, before telling Rukia to finish without him and to let him know of the competition's outcome. She agreed, though with some confusion, as Byakuya went off after Kiyuku.

When he caught up with her, she was on her haunches, holding a tiny pink shell to her face.

"I thought we agreed that you would wait," he said, neither annoyed nor particularly pleased.

Out from under the parasol, Kiyuku glanced up at him. "You were taking too long," she smiled teasingly. "But I'm glad you're here now. Look…" she thrust the little shell towards him, arm muscles tensing delicately. "Doesn't it look like a blossom?"

It looked quite simply like a pink shell, but Kiyuku seemed too pleased with her discovery to be told otherwise. Byakuya nodded agreeably, more so at her childish delight than at the shell. "How far are the rock pools from here?"

"I think they're just around the corner," Kiyuku said, placing the shell down into the sand and burying it tenderly.

There was a mole on her shoulder blade; another on her thigh; one on her back just below the string of her costume. Miniature constellations. Byakuya imagined connecting the dots with his finger.

They continued on without speaking. As with their conversations, the silences between them had begun to grow longer – calm, unthreatening silences, punctuated now by the hiss of ocean and the distant yelling of their fellow beach goers. With deft twists of her fingers, Kiyuku spun the parasol on her shoulder, eyes widening and blinking and narrowing continuously as she looked ahead at the rock pools. She'd removed the ridiculously sized hat, leaving it behind for Kusajishi-fukutaichou to don – and now, in the salt and the wind, her hair had puffed itself into an amber mane, wisped and curly around her face. The mess of it was quite… lovely.

Kiyuku closed the umbrella and dropped it, along with her sunglasses, down into the sand. Barefooted, looking like a fairy, she clambered across the rocks with eyes downturned, spying out shells and fishes and other strange treasures. Waves crashed and erupted into forms of foam before dissipating into puddles. Kiyuku sprang between them while Byakuya followed closely behind.

Without the shade of the parasol she was almost luminous, a stunning contrast to the horizon of blue gradients. Gracefully limbed, bouncing from rock to rock – until she slipped.

There was a sharp yelp. Byakuya – he had figured she would hurt herself soon enough; their gigai were not built for agility – rushed to where she'd fallen, not realizing how he shouted her name.

From behind the rocks came Kiyuku's voice, resolute and steady, "I'm fine! I'm fine." Then her red mass of hair appeared, and she climbed back into his view.

"Your leg," Byakuya said, raising his eyebrows at the nasty scrapes rounding her thigh.

"They're shallow. It looks a lot worse than it is." She didn't meet his eye, brightly flushed and hardly able to blame the sun.

Byakuya sighed. "You should be more careful. What happens to this body happens to our real one."

"I was being careful."

"Flouncing about like a child is not being careful," he said this more harshly than he'd intended. Frankly, he'd enjoyed watching her flounce about and wouldn't have minded all that much if she continued to do so.

Suddenly not listening, Kiyuku glared intently into a puddle at Byakuya's feet. She bent down, teeny drips of blood forming out from the scrapes on her leg, and directed her finger into the water. "Look." Byakuya had to bend down as well to see what she was pointing at. Out from the obscurity of the rocks' shadows, like a slow and barbed sun, a starfish crawled its way along the floor of the puddle. An intense purple, flecked by orange and white. It was easily bigger than Kiyuku's hand. "So pretty!" she squeaked.

And Byakuya looked at her. "Yes. Beautiful."

The sun began to set soon afterwards and the two of them returned to the sand, watching the sky as it melted from blue to orange to pink. It seemed most of the others had left already, their shouts no longer echoing across the stretch of beach. Kiyuku began to shiver as the sun disappeared further. Byakuya draped the shirt he wore over her shoulders.

"How's your leg?" he asked, eying the dried blood and freshly darkening bruises.

"It's a bit tender now," she said. "But nothing serious."

"You should have someone from the fourth squad look at it when we get back to Soul Society. In case it's infected."

Kiyuku rolled her eyes at him. "Don't be silly. It's not infected."

Her shoulder was close, her hips only a slight lean away from his own. Byakuya couldn't figure out how, seated as they were on the sand, the gap between them had come to be so small. He need only shift marginally, to readjust his position in the most insignificant way, and the sides of their bodies would touch. In the sand, stretching out his hand, he touched the edge of her fingers with his own. Small. Tentative. He glanced at her – and she, having been looking at him, glanced away. Their pinkies crossed, sliding further along each other's hands until the rest of their fingers were interlocked in a pattern without any clear beginning.


	24. Hard and Fast

Chapter 24  
Hard and Fast

"Ah! Joushiro. You're glowing after your trip to the beach."

Joushiro laughed. "This? This is just sunburn."

Cups and sake were set out on the table. Shunsui, with a comfortable sigh, removed his kimono and haori. Indeed, Joushiro was a little red around the face; even so, a few hours in the ocean air had clearly done him well – some days beforehand he hadn't even been able to walk straight, yet alone admit visitors for drinks. A steady smile. Upright shoulders. Shunsui hummed at the sight of his friend. "I'm glad to see you're regaining strength."

"I am. Everyone has been very sympathetic," Joushiro nodded. "I'd be letting them all down if I didn't recover quickly."

"Always so considerate." Shunsui filled the cups before him with a chuckle.

They drank, admiring the size of Joushiro's koi as they leaped from the pond in glorious gold arches – hadn't they always been red though? While fond of his fishes, Joushiro didn't keep a close enough eye to know what had inspired such growth spurts and colour changes. If he could only figure it out, it would likely be the scientific discovery of the century. At this, the two of them laughed, continuing on about fishes and fishing before circling back to talk of the beach.

"It's a pity you didn't come along. It was a splendid time! Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves."

"Kiyuku-chan told me so. I'm so disappointed that I didn't get to see all the young ladies in their costumes," Shunsui gave a playful pout.

A shake of the head, but Joushiro conceded, "They all looked very nice." He sipped his sake, looked thoughtful for a moment. "Aramiya-san enjoyed herself?"

"Oh, yes. She gave a rather glowing account of the day."

"I thought she looked quite, well, lost most of the time. She disappeared for a while after the sand art competition – I actually assumed that she'd come back to Soul Society."

"Curious. She said she went for a walk."

"She did, it turns out. With Kuchiki-san. They only arrived at the Beach Shack for dinner much later into the evening," Joushiro raised his eyebrows with amusement. "Apparently they went to the rock pools to look at _starfishes_."

Shunsui laughed into his cup, entertained by the skepticism with which his friend spoke. "I'm not surprised," he mused. "How did they seem when they got back?"

There was a knowingness to Joushiro's smile, like an old and trusted school teacher. "They avoided each other completely."

"I thought so."

"So you've noticed it too then?"

"Of course," Shunsui said, as though it would be absurd to not have noticed. Certainly, despite the fact that she was a noble, Kiyuku-chan had never been very adept at hiding her feelings. Probably because she didn't understand them enough to do so.

Joushiro leaned forward conspiratorially. "What about at the captain's meeting today?"

Shunsui considered the events of the captain's meeting. To the untrained eye, it was all very usual – easy to say that there was nothing going on; in fact, most of the other captains probably hadn't noticed themselves, the fact of it was so subtle. However, throughout the entirety of the proceedings, there were little jumps in reiatsu. Flutters of energy like the beats of a small bird's wings, all of it rushing in remarkably discreet swells between Kiyuku-chan and Kuchiki Byakuya. Looking at them was unimpressive, faces perfectly moulded into indifference, but it was there – Shunsui had felt it, a breezy graze against his skin.

He'd watched them at the end of the meeting as well. Had he so much as blinked he could have missed it, but in amongst the exiting group of bodies, near invisible between the white flows of haoris, their hands had touched. A perfectly natural mistake if only their fingers hadn't lingered together for just too long. If only their pinkies hadn't intertwined for the slightest of seconds before the two of them went their separate ways.

Shunsui smirked. "It was only a matter of time."

"They complement each other nicely," Joushiro agreed. "It's happened very fast though. It's only been a few months."

"Yes. But Kiyuku-chan is a very…" Shunsui thought about the word. "She's a very passionate creature. No idea how to pace herself. It would be strange if things _didn't_ develop hard and fast."

"I suppose Kuchiki-san's never been one to take things slowly either."

"Exactly." Shunsui, finishing off his second cup of sake, gestured for Joushiro to pour more. "I won't say I'm not a little concerned though. Lovely as young love is."

"I was just wondering if you would be. You often mention how Aramiya-san crashes hard after a high," Joushiro sighed, a wistful and reminiscent glaze shadowing across his features. "And young love is certainly just that. The most delightful of highs."

Shunsui hummed. "Kiyuku-chan has such skewed ideas about love as it is. I'd hate for her to find more reason to think she's right."

"Skewed ideas?"

"She refers to it as stunting, as though love were a disability or some sort of disease." Shunsui considered his and Kiyuku's conversations – those winding talks about art and philosophy and the nature of things. "Which is sad. She's such a romantic at heart."

"Sounds like she's more scared than anything else," Joushiro tilted his head.

"Of course. Isn't that always how it goes?"

They both chuckled.

"Perhaps you should talk to her. Aramiya-san seems to listen to you more so than she does to anyone else. I think even Yamajii would have a hard time getting through to her." At the thought, Joushiro grinned sheepishly.

"And what would I say?" Shunsui waved his hand in reflection. "At this stage, I don't imagine Kiyuku-chan has any grasp on the kind of feelings she's fostering. I see her like a daughter – she might not feel the same, she already has a lovely father of her own after all – but I don't think I should get involved. Not now anyway."

"Not until you can swoop in and save the day, you mean."

"My, my. You're such a tease." Shunsui held out his sake cup. "Shall we cheers to young love?"


	25. Kimono

Chapter 25  
Kimono

On the far side of the Manor garden, under the porticos and amongst the trees, servants were setting out tables and arranging flowers. There had been rain over the last few days; heavy, somber rains that made everything dewy and lush. Glistening under the wet shimmer of the moon, it was like glitter sprinkled specially for the next day's wedding.

Hard to believe that, in a mere matter of hours, Kiyuku would be the only one of her sisters left unmarried.

The four of them came in from the outdoor bath, dressed in yukatas, hair clipped in haphazard buns. Mina and Chiyo's husbands were spending the night with the groom-to-be while Mina's kids had been handed off to her in-laws. Narime was overseeing the final preparations and would be joining her daughters later. In the meantime the sisters sat on the floor of the drawing room, legs outstretched and their faces covered in clay masks – it went without saying that a night of primping and pampering, accompanied by glasses of plum wine, was in order.

"Have you had any strange dreams about the wedding yet?" Mina asked Aniko, swirling her wine. She had recently stopped breast feeding and planned to take full advantage of the opportunity to drink.

"I've been having strange dreams since the day we got engaged," Aniko giggled.

"Tell them about the one where all your teeth fell out," Chiyo insisted with delighted horror.

Kiyuku and Mina gasped and nodded and shook their heads in dismay as Aniko recounted the shocking tale. "I kissed him, and then bam – no teeth! Nobody seemed to notice, which made me even more upset. It was all I could think about until I finally woke up again," she concluded with relief.

"You have the same kind of dreams when you have children," Mina sighed. "When I was first pregnant, I dreamed that I gave birth to a bunch of grapes."

This elicited much hysterical laughter from Kiyuku and the twins.

"Pregnancy _is _weird though," Kiyuku said.

"Agreed," Chiyo nodded. "I think I'll just adopt one day."

They all drank more wine. Kiyuku had two glasses and began to feel the ground slipping out from beneath her. Numb lips. Prickly fingers. She giggled at things that weren't all that funny and thought about telling her sisters what it felt like to hold Byakuya's hand. Warm. Kind of weird but in a tingly – there was no other word to describe it – way. That time at the beach, even though neither of them had meant for it to happen, they'd spent a long while feeling each other's fingers in the sand. Kiyuku had managed to convinced herself it wasn't real, like she'd been an observer in someone else's body: Byakuya hadn't really held _her _hand and she hadn't really held his either. So it meant nothing that he'd done it again a week afterwards, or that he'd touched his fingers to her hair in a confused moment of spontaneity, or that she had liked it. None of it meant anything, Kiyuku was sure.

The shoji to the drawing room slid open and their mother stepped in, carrying a pristine white box more than half her size.

"Mama!" the twins screeched in delight.

"We've missed yo-o-ou," Mina slurred. "Wine? Do you want some wine, Mama?"

Their mother laughed at the sight of them, red-haired and surely red-faced beneath the clay masks. "My, my. You four have been getting louder and louder all evening – I could hear you all the way from the edge of the garden."

"Well, _obviously_. We're celebrating," Kiyuku said, swirling her third glass of wine for her mother to see.

"Don't be so cheeky, Kuku." Narime sat down next to Kiyuku and handed her the box. "This arrived for you."

"Your ki-mo-no!" Chiyo declared. "I thought it would _never _arrive."

"Open it! Open it!" Aniko followed. "It better not be prettier than mine though."

On the lid, Kiyuku's name was embossed in beautiful pink kanji. It was a bit extravagant for her sisters to have arranged such a gorgeous delivery – but Kiyuku wasn't about to complain. She removed the lid, set aside the golden tissue paper beneath it. Then she stood to reveal the kimono.

It hung in a silky fountain of deep-rose pink. Lined by fuchsia and gold, a magnificent twisting of light in its sheen. Gathering like water at her feet, golden koi swirled about the material: ever upwards in delicate curves until they blossomed into orchids and camellias and sakura. Kiyuku's breath caught in her throat. Such fine petals. Such deep, gorgeous hues of magenta, purple and amber. Starry details were etched into the scales of the koi. Upon closer inspection, shy butterflies peaked out from behind the flowers. An obi to match rested daintily in the box, a single white orchid opening across its darkly blushed surface.

Kiyuku just about screeched, "It's marvelous! It's absolutely perfect!" Clutching the kimono to her chest, relishing the cool glaze of its silk, she said to her sisters, "Thank you. It's so much better than my haori. Thank you so much!"

Chiyo giggled slyly. "Can we tell her?"

Mina shushed her, "Absolutely not! Keep quiet, you."

Kiyuku, still gripping the kimono and reeling over its beauty, blinked at her sisters. "Tell me what?"

"Mama! We can tell her right?" Chiyo appealed.

Their mother held up her hands in an abdication of responsibility. "This isn't my secret. Don't ask me."

"It's _my _wedding tomorrow," Aniko reasoned. "Therefore I should make the final decision. I say we tell her."

"He asked you not to," Mina spat.

Kiyuku's heart began to slow. "Who's he? Tell me _what_?"

"We're drunk…" Chiyo said.

"…so it makes it okay if we break a promise," Aniko added.

The twins exchanged a look, and before Mina could object again they blurted in slurry, shrill unison, "The kimono is from Kuchiki-saaan."

Their older sister sighed before finishing the rest of her wine in a single gulp. Kiyuku, unable to blame the drink, felt her face grow ever hotter beneath the clay mask. She tried to say something, not believing Chiyo and Aniko's accusations. Byakuya wouldn't have sent her such a beautiful kimono.

As though to confirm the story, the twins took turns to explain themselves. "He sent us a letter two months ago."

"Remember that day we came for your measurements?"

"Yes. That day. He said he would like to have a kimono made for you at his cost, but he needed your measurements immediately."

"And our agreement not to tell you that the kimono would be from him. Oopsy."

The two of them giggled.

"He ended up paying the Kuchiki family's seamstresses triple the usual amount in order for them to have something spectacular ready on time."

"And it certainly is spectacular."

Aniko briefly considered the fact that it might even be more spectacular than her own kimono but was quick to dismiss any such thought. Mina called them a pair of untrustworthy yappers. Their mother only took the kimono and folded it neatly back into its box, giving Kiyuku a wide eyed smile before taking it away to the bedroom.

Kiyuku thought again of the way Byakuya had held her hand. It meant nothing. The kimono meant nothing – he'd known she needed one and this was only a gesture. Still, as she finished her last glass of wine and went to wash the mask off her face, she felt a knot growing in her stomach and a tingling in her fingers. As though over all the places Byakuya's own fingers had touched.


	26. The Reception

Chapter 26  
The Reception

Though the ceremony was traditional, the reception followed a rather more alternative route.

Everything was whimsical. Over the top. Origami cranes, folded from the most expensive paper Aniko could find, hung in flocks along the portico roofs. Plants of all sorts – flowers, herbs, mosses, even the occasional branch – climbed to splendid heights. Musicians slithered amongst the guests. They each played what would appear to be a completely different melody until happening into a group at Aniko and her husband's table, their instruments uniting then into a stunning and coherent mesh of harmonies. Supposedly, there was to be dancing. Alcohol was flowing well, so Kiyuku imagined even the most conservative of guests wouldn't mind this development.

The fourth course of food was served. Kiyuku asked one of the servants to refill her glass with apple juice.

Blankets were laid across the grass, both for children and for the more laid back guests. Indeed, most of said blankets were occupied, either with lethargic and bare-footed adults or with a number of small children, Mina's own included, as they played with wooden toys. There was laughter, loud conversation, clinking glasses, all of it floating up and up into a golden shimmer of setting sun. Sweet smells – spices and perfumes and florals. Many faces Kiyuku didn't recognise. A plethora of sensual imagery.

Her apple juice came, disguised by a wine glass and so going unquestioned by her sisters. In one deft movement, Kiyuku threw it back. A semicircle of lipstick smudged the glass's rim.

She considered this: a slur of burgundy, the imprint of her stupidly thin lips. She'd worn the colour once before, to her graduation from the Academy; Kyoraku-taichou had called it striking and said she looked like an image of snow and roses. It was mostly this compliment that drove Kiyuku to wear the lipstick again. Against the shades and shimmers of the kimono it went nicely, drawing out the deeper red undertones of the koi and butterflies. She wasn't wearing any other makeup, apart from a slight shade on her lids, but she had redone her hair three times that morning. Curling, pinning, straightening, unpinning, repinning, until eventually she'd settled for a loose roll at the back of her head. Her mother, giddy with excitement at her daughter's supposed prettiness, had given Kiyuku one of her oldest and most beautiful hair ornaments – a crystal orchid, of course, hung with gold tassels and red and pink gems.

It clinked and chimed in delicate whispers each time Kiyuku turned her head. Which she did often, glancing into the expanse between herself and the table at the other end of the event.

Byakuya was seated with the Shihouins; he didn't appear to have looked at her once that evening. The distance, the lack of interest in her presence, made Kiyuku fidget and sigh. She ate without leaving leftovers, spoke with her sisters and their husbands and some of the new in-laws, laughing when expected and nodding seriously otherwise – but it all went straight through her, like an illusion of festivity without any feeling. She thought it childish and nonsensical that she'd spent the entirety of the reception waiting for his attention. That she'd wrapped the kimono for him to see; that she'd fretted over looking pretty and being worthy of the gift he'd given her.

Kiyuku even began to question whether Byakuya had really sent the kimono at all or if it had been her family's idea of a joke. A cruel, unfair joke.

By the time the sixth course arrived – the first of the desserts: a delicate meringue with sugared fruits – Kiyuku's stomach was in a knot. She stopped glimpsing in Byakuya's direction, resigned to the fact that he likely didn't have a thought in his mind about her and annoyed by the fact that she cared. Without any appetite, Kiyuku glared unhappily at her plate.

Mina's hand drifted onto her thigh. "Kuku-chan. Are you full already?"

"Yes. I ate too much," Kiyuku responded, sounding false and pathetic even to her own ears.

"You have a bigger stomach than that," Mina teased, and then she lowered her voice. "Is something wrong?"

Kiyuku shook her head.

"Are you sure?"

"Mmm-hmm." She felt Mina staring hard into the side of her face, looking for signs that something _was _in fact wrong.

Then Mina smiled, brushing a stray piece of hair behind Kiyuku's ear as she said, "If it makes you feel any better, Kuchiki-san has been looking at you all evening."

"_Nonsense_," Kiyuku spat quietly, the force of the word sending Mina into a fit of surprised blinks. Rising from her chair, Kiyuku excused herself.

In the main house, she wiped viciously at her lips with a cotton serviette, cursing the stubborn stain of burgundy as it refused to fade. There was still another hour's worth of dessert servings to get through, another speech from the bride and groom before she would be allowed to depart the wedding permanently. What a waste. Kiyuku really _had_ felt pretty, practically floating through the ceremony on a cloud of day-dreamy romanticism and feeling her chest burst into nauseating flutters when she'd spotted Byakuya.

Still. She refused to admit she adored him.

Would not acknowledge that her mind had revolved around him, him, him since that day at the beach.

There was nothing wrong with her. She did not hope to be swept off her feet. Not that night. Not any night.

Thoughtlessly dropping the serviette into a bin, Kiyuku scowled at her reflection in the entry hall's mirror. Pieces of hair had fallen from her bun, hanging now in soft, flimsy wisps. The lipstick was still dark. She looked miserable and felt ridiculous. With a sigh, Kiyuku straightened herself and left through the front door – where, like a tall and white apparition along the path, Byakuya stood waiting.

"Hello Kiyuku."

She froze. Heart pounding – trying to think if he had ever said her name before – Kiyuku nodded coolly. "Kuchiki-san."

Byakuya eyed her, unmoving and spectral, as he said, "You've been very quiet this evening."

_How would you even know? _"I'm always quiet."

"Not always." In the dimness, Byakuya's lips curved upwards in the slightest of smiles.

"Are you looking for the washrooms?"

"No."

"Well," Kiyuku swallowed against nothing, not looking at him. "I'll be getting back then."

Down the front steps. Right by him. She tried to walk past, tried not to notice the way he smelled and looked and made her feel. Kiyuku reminded herself that he'd never meant to hold her hand, that there was nothing going on between them, that he probably hadn't sent her the kimono and still loved somebody else. But in a single, smooth movement, Byakuya's hand was around her wrist.


	27. Beautiful

Chapter 27  
Beautiful

"I was looking for you," Byakuya told Kiyuku, tightening his grip on her wrist. Much like a bird's wing, it was small and boney. Delicate. Easily broken with enough force. When Kiyuku turned to look at him, she wore an endearing question mark of an expression that made Byakuya sigh. "I'd like to take a walk around the garden," he continued. "Would you care to accompany me?"

A wordless nod. Kiyuku slid out from his grip and began to lead him down another path.

All that evening, he had struggled not to look at her. The kimono was more exquisite than he'd originally anticipated – but not nearly so much as the girl who wore it. She was a glowing image of contrasts: amber and ivory, blossoms and the moon. Cheeks flushed as roses and her lips darker still, though she had clearly tried to rub off their colour. Following behind, Byakuya wanted so badly to reach out and touch her. To run his fingers down her exposed nape or to take her hands in his once again.

It was rapidly becoming dark. The flowers around them – thick bushes of hydrangea in purples and pinks – were growing blue in the fading light.

He didn't like the way he felt. It was unwieldy and tiring. Looking for her in everything; more importantly, _finding _her in everything. Blossoms, calligraphy, koi, bananas. Kiyuku had taken up the entirety of his being and Byakuya was ashamed of himself for it. How easily she'd slipped into his affections, how recklessly he had allowed her to do so. And now that he had no inclination to stop himself, knowing that it was dark and they were alone and he wanted her, he had an eerie feeling that it was perhaps already too late. That he had fallen.

He couldn't even say he'd tried not to. He'd taken no precautions, not thinking such a thing as this was possible, and he would pay the price for it sooner or later.

Not tonight though.

"Kiyuku."

She paused, a lovely lone figure in amongst the flowers. "Yes?"

"That's a splendid kimono."

At last she turned to look at him, red in the face and biting the insides of her cheeks. Like a child on the brink of a temper tantrum, her arms seemed to tremble at her sides. "My kimono…"

"It suits you," Byakuya said, unsure of why she'd become so flustered.

Taking a step towards him, close enough for him to smell the blossomy scent of her perfume, Kiyuku eyed him seriously. "Did you have it made?"

Byakuya said nothing.

Her sisters weren't supposed to have told her. It was not for the sake of any surprise or suspenseful romanticism that he had asked this of them – it was for Kiyuku's sake. Byakuya had meant it as a gesture. He'd had it made out of the platonic feelings of affection he'd felt for her. He couldn't have had her thinking too deeply about it.

At least, this was what he'd reasoned when the seamstresses were first commissioned; in hindsight, however, he'd paid much too much money and put much too much thought into something meant purely as a 'gesture'. He'd asked for koi because the fishes made him think of Kiyuku. Orchids were her favourite flower and she needed to be adorned by them. She was lovelier than any butterfly and deserved to be worshipped as such. In hindsight, Byakuya was not simply making a gesture.

"_Well_?" Kiyuku demanded.

"Yes. I had the kimono made."

The blush on her face deepened. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Are you unhappy with it?"

"Unhappy?" she repeated.

Byakuya sighed, frustration welling in his temples. "Is it not what you wanted?"

Kiyuku stared at him, her lips parted in an incomplete look of puzzlement. "It's the most beautiful kimono I've ever seen in my life," she said. "But I want to know why you didn't give it to me yourself."

"You ask too many questions." But he couldn't stop looking at her. Face blotchy with pink and pallour, hair falling in amber waves along the delicate curve of her jaw, Byakuya imagined all the words he could say to her. Enchanting. Soft. Sylph-like. A landscape of blooms that he didn't want to stop discovering. Byakuya said her name, snaked his hand along her neck. "You are beautiful."

And then he kissed her. Long and gently, he pressed his lips to hers in a quiet admission of guilt – he had fallen. This was not how it was supposed to be but he was not prepared to stop it. Not now. Too late, too far gone. He pulled her into his arms and she didn't resist, sinking into his kiss with all the gleeful innocence of a flower in the rain. Her hands were in his neck. He touched her lips with his tongue and tasted apple juice. The moment was quiet, but everything inside of him seemed to ache. For her. Against her. For the way she sent a million pinpricks down his spine like dead stars flaring back to life; for the blossoms that seemed to spring forth wherever her skin met his. And against it all – knowing that the brightest stars still faded and that flowers would still wilt.

Just as suddenly as it had happened, it was over. He held her face in his hands, committing to memory the blue shimmers of delight in her eyes as she said his name. A foreign concept in her mouth. A secret under the cover of darkness. Byakuya kissed her shy smile once more before they returned to the reception, silently parting ways under the probing gaze of her sisters. Across the expanse of wedding space, he continued to look at her – at the glowing flush about her features and the new mess of her hair – cringing at the ever mounting feeling of shame as it spread through his stomach.

…

**A/N: I LOVED writing this chapter! Always down for a kiss scene. :) Review and let me know what you think! **


	28. Fall

Chapter 28  
Fall

He dreamed of ominous, low hisses. He dreamed that everything would tear beneath his feet and that he would fall. Fall from white oblivion into black void.

Everything was slow. The muttering echoes fading, fading, fading into a single silence. But the flowers continued: budding and blossoming and wilting against his skin, his face, his lips. He could taste them. Sweet in their youth, then bitter, then sweet again. Spring, summer, autumn, winter, spring. He couldn't stop them anymore. Couldn't move. He was naked, numb, prisoner to a burst of petals.

Growing. Growing too beautiful against him. Against his legs and chest and heart. Growing into his voice so that he forgot her name.

He couldn't remember her name. _Hisana, Hisana_. But it rang hollow and wrong. Wooden. Paper thin and wrong.

_Hisana._

_Hi-sa-na._

She wasn't there, wasn't with him. Into the ground as it thinned and yellowed, she had faded and it was his fault. The flowers had crumpled her, torn her, shredded her and he hadn't stopped them. Now there was no she and only burning colour. Vehement golds. Pink. Red. And a shrill ringing: steady, piercing hums of paper butterflies. Materializing from the invisible sunset. Kissing the flowers only to burn into ash around him.

One fluttered. Bobbed and bounced and swirled towards him. Wings thin, white as powder.

It was going to burn.

He lifted his hand, lethargic and heavy. He tried to stop it. _Stop. Don't come closer. _But it only stared. Continued to flutter and bounce and swirl until he felt it on his fingers. Climbing. Twisting. A million pinpricks in its wake. Floating up and up along his arms, shoulders, lips. He felt the air of its wings, so innocent and soft – and then he felt the warmth of its flames. Could only watch as the paper butterfly crinkled, blackening into a dirty pile at his feet.

Under the weight, the paper gave in. It pulled and ripped to reveal nothing beneath its whiteness and Byakuya tumbled down. Down into darkness. Down, a weightless body of flesh and bone and blossoms. The white oblivion unraveled and in a massive twisting of space, petals began to fall around him.


	29. A Thing for Kuchikis

Chapter 29  
A Thing For Kuchikis

Her parents asked if she'd known. They'd expected it, of course, even strongly suspected that something had already been going on – but after the wedding, they knew for certain that they were right. That their sweetest Kiyuku was being romanced.

Sitting with them over lunch, Mina could only smile.

Indeed, for all her vicious rejection of romantic tropes, Kiyuku could not have been more obvious about her giddy delight at the wedding. She'd practically glided back in from the garden, wildly pink from excitement and trying hard to conceal a grin. Her fingers hadn't stopped moving: brushing hair behind her ear, jumping about in her lap, and ever-so-often floating up to her lips to mindlessly graze the fading lipstick. It was this last one, this strange and unfamiliar little act, which had given Kiyuku away.

And while Kuchiki-san may have done a better job at maintaining his regal façade, he hadn't once stop looking at her. An intense, tender gaze – the type with which he'd always looked at Hisana.

"I didn't notice anything weird about Kiyuku-chan though," Dataru, Mina's husband, declared. As he stewed over his miso soup, the furrow in his brow made him look confused and concerned.

Mother giggled affectionately, touching her son-in-law's arm. "But my dear, you've always been rather oblivious."

"Perhaps that is best," Father mused. "I wish _I_ could have ignored it for a little while longer."

"Why would you say that, Papa?"

"The last of my little girls is being swept off her feet. No father would be entirely happy about that."

Mina laughed heartily, knowing that her father was probably thrilled by the fact that Kiyuku had gone and found herself a man. Dataru looked between them. "Kuchiki-san doesn't seem like the kind of man your sister would be interested in," he said to Mina.

"Oh?" she raised her eyebrows curiously. "I think he's exactly Kiyuku's type. Serious. Principled."

"You should have met Kuchiki-san as a teenager," Mother added, shaking her head at the thought of the collective headache Byakuya had been. "He and Kiyuku are very nearly the same person. Even Kuchiki Ginrei said so once. Foul tempers and impressive ambition."

"He has a temper?" Dataru started.

Mina sighed at her husband's ignorance. Being roughly the same age as Byakuya, she'd spent a fair amount of time around him as a child and teenager – their parents had even joked about pairing the two of them off in marriage. She would rather have shaved her head and lived out her days as a monk. He had been painful and pompous and neurotic, and Mina had hardly been able to stand him. Once, when the twins were still tiny and Kiyuku hadn't even been born, Mina had become so fed up with Byakuya that she'd locked him in a closet. _Where was Byakuya? Wasn't he with you, Mina? No. She had no clue where he had gone. Maybe he'd run away. _However, when her father eventually heard the miserable shouts coming from the locked closet, Mina got the nastiest spanking of her life.

Some days later, the young Byakuya would sneak up behind her and in one practiced movement chop off her ponytail. A cunning and personal act of vengeance. It had been his turn then to be smacked.

Mina giggled at the memory. "Oh yes. He has a temper."

"Well he hides it well."

"Years of practice, I would say." Sakudo lifted his sake cup to drink reflectively.

"Do you think they make a good couple, Sakudo-san?" Dataru asked.

Sakudo didn't reply for some moments, pouting his lips and looking contemplative. "I don't think Kiyuku would be interested in someone who doesn't complement her. She knows herself well."

"She's emotionally constipated, Papa," Mina said. "Even now, she'll probably only ever refer to Kuchiki-san as a colleague or a close acquaintance. When it comes to romance, I don't think she knows herself very well at all."

"Well, we'll just have to call her out on it." Mother dished up more rice and pickled vegetables for herself. "I think they'd make a lovely couple."

"They suit each other," Father agreed, not sounding wholly convinced. When Mina called him out on this, he confirmed in a slow and thoughtful voice, "I have my reservations."

"Because of Hisana?" Mina tried not to scowl even though her father did so freely. Whether at her nonchalance about the forbidden name or because of the name itself, Mina couldn't decide.

"Yes, Mimi. Because of Hisana." He finished his sake and gestured for Mother to pour more. "It's hard for a man who's already given his love to truly love again. Therefore, I'm so not sure that Kuchiki-san will be able to love Kiyuku as a woman in her own right rather than simply as his replacement wife – if it comes to that, that is."

"I'd say Kuchiki-san adores Kiyuku as Kiyuku," Mina shrugged, thinking of the way he had looked at her, of the subtle details in the kimono he had sent. None of it had reeked of Hisana's posthumous influence. Quite the contrary.

"I should hope so. My Kuku has every reason to be adored," Father uttered.

"Kuchiki-san's parents would have been thrilled, I'm sure," Mother said with a grin, clearly more pleased by the idea than her husband was. "They always liked Kiyuku."

"They always liked her _most_ out of all four of us," Mina now did nothing to conceal her playful frown. "Only because she was a cute baby though."

"Nonsense. She was a difficult baby, always crying and glaring at everyone. I think she liked playing hard to get," Father laughed. "Sōjun only liked Kiyuku so much because he was one of the only people she didn't mind being cuddled by. Made him feel like a chosen prince."

Mina considered this fondly. She'd also been one of the only people able to hold Kiyuku without inspiring a shrill wave of wails. This was not a privilege that had been given lightly – even the twins and their father had had a difficult time gaining baby Kiyuku's affections. Somehow though, Kuchiki Sōjun had easily managed to become part of the elite handful in her good-books. When visiting, he would get to play and cuddle and coo over her for hours on end, eliciting squeals of delight and even on occasion managing to put the hyperactive baby to sleep. And when the time came that Kiyuku was to be handed to anyone else, she would scream and squirm and reach out to Sōjun adorably until being given back to him. This had displeased Father greatly and had amused Mother even more.

Clearly, Kiyuku always had a thing for the Kuchiki men.

As such, Father nearly cried when Kiyuku's first word ended up being 'dayddee' rather than a cute curling of his best friend's name.

With a sigh, he tapped the rim of his sake cup seriously. "Whatever might happen between Kiyuku and Kuchiki-san, I hope that they won't be foolish. Young love seems to inspire reckless action in all of my daughters." And he shot Mina a knowing glare.


	30. Feelings

Chapter 30  
Feelings

Kiyuku was hopelessly stupid and she knew it.

Since the wedding, she'd been avoiding Byakuya. She'd turned down two dinners and had told Hinamori to say that she was not in her office if any of the other captains came looking for her. It was not because she didn't want to see him. Quite the opposite. She wanted to see him _badly_, but had absolutely no idea how to handle the pressure of his presence.

The kiss at Aniko's wedding – it still made her stomach twist to think of it – had been very real. There was no denying that it had happened. Worse still, there was no denying that it meant something to her. Byakuya's lips had left a lingering weight. Twice now Kiyuku had dreamed of it: of kissing him, feeling his face in her hands, hearing her name etched into his voice. And stuff. It all left her feeling ridiculously flustered. Bothered. Distracted. She was keen on Kuchiki Byakuya and was not managing the feeling very well.

More than that though, she wasn't sure what exactly he was feeling in return.

Yes. _He _had kissed _her_ and had done so with excitingly soft passion.

But people kissed other people all the time without it meaning anything. As a junior, she'd made out with a boy at the Academy – drunkenly, in a game of Truth or Dare with some of the seniors – and didn't so much as remember his name, though nowadays she suspected it could have been the third squad's current lieutenant. It was the sauciest story of her life. Regardless, the point was that she placed a world of importance upon the kiss with Byakuya while it was possible that he thought nothing of it.

It seemed unlikely that that was the case, of course. Byakuya was not that type of person – he was serious and principled; he was tender and kind when he wanted to be. Maybe, though, somewhere deep down, he _was_ that type of person. With all the feelings swirling about in her gut, Kiyuku seemed to be doubting even the most commonplace knowledge.

With her face in her hands, she groaned. The whole thing was very frustrating.

She could probably have asked Kyoraku-taichou what to do. Insight from a man's perspective would have been helpful.

Then again, Kyoraku-taichou had a rather different approach to women than what Byakuya did and going to him would have been a level of embarrassing Kiyuku did not want to experience.

Matsumoto? Certainly not. It was not only unprofessional, but it was also doubtful that a woman of her quality would offer the right kind of advice on men. Her sisters were also out of the question at the moment – the risk of her parents finding out was too great.

It was all too complicated. So Kiyuku simply avoided it, burying her head in the proverbial ground and working manically as though there was nothing going on. Oh yes. Everything was as it always had been: she was not in any way confused or perturbed or hot and bothered. At least, not until Byakuya bypassed Hinamori's careful watch and shunpo'ed himself into the office.

At the oppressive weight of his reiatsu, Kiyuku snapped her head up. Her stomach made a weird noise and she hoped sincerely that he didn't hear it. "Kuchiki-taichou. I wasn't expecting…"

"You're avoiding me. Why?"

His frankness, though perfectly characteristic, surprised her. "I'm… not avoiding you…"

"You are," Byakuya said, his steely gaze agitating and wonderful. "And I expect you to tell me the reason."

Kiyuku looked down into her lap, face hot and heart throbbing. Maybe the kiss had meant something to him if he was annoyed with her over this. Maybe not though – she had no idea even though she _should_ have known black from white. "Sorry?"

"I didn't ask for your apology." Having crossed the space between them without her noticing, Byakuya rounded the desk and – in a suave scooping motion – wrapped his hand around her chin. "But I will ask you again. Why are you avoiding me?"

Being locked into his stare, Kiyuku wasn't sure whether she was more annoyed or turned on. Either way, she shook herself free of his grasp and looked away once more. "I've been busy."

"You've been busy."

"Yes."

An awkward silence. Byakuya's displeasure was heavy and black as miasma. Kiyuku blinked once and then twice again before lifting her eyes back to him – and was aghast to find him turning away. "My apologies," he said. "I'll leave you to it then."

Abruptly, in a movement that seemed more instinctive than anything else, Kiyuku grabbed his hand. "Wait."

He looked at her over his shoulder, impassive and formidable.

Kiyuku swallowed against nothing. "I haven't been that busy."

"I assumed."

"I just…" she considered her words. Then she narrowed her eyes at him.

He _knew _she didn't know what she was doing. That she was romantically dense and inexperienced – this was just a ploy to make her say it out loud. Just like the calligraphy classes had been a cunning way of making her admit she would never be any good at calligraphy. Except now Byakuya wanted to hear that she was hopeless without his romantic-leadership. That she _needed _him.

Letting go of Byakuya's hand, she crossed her arms tightly around her chest and glared up at him. There was no space for her to stand from the chair, and so she must have seemed especially tiny. Still, Kiyuku refused to relent. "Nevermind," she told Byakuya firmly.

The two of them stared at each other for quite some time. Kiyuku considered saying something else – she didn't know what though: something, anything – when Byakuya sighed and turned to face her once more. "I didn't realise you'd be quite so flustered by the whole thing."

"Flustered?"

"Flustered. Like so…"

Byakuya leaned over her, his scarf falling in pale cascades alongside her shoulders. She could smell him. His breaths were on her cheek, then she could feel his lips. His lips as they traced small kisses along her cheekbone towards her mouth. At the airy touch, a shriek welled up within Kiyuku's chest. A nauseating flutter like a restless bird. She waited in anticipation for him to kiss her properly; but, spiteful as he was, he stopped just at the corner of her mouth and pulled away, a slate grey glimmer of boyishness in his eyes which Kiyuku had never seen before.

"What was _that_?" she demanded, her face erupting in a massive wave of heat and colour.

"Why have you been avoiding me?" Byakuya questioned simply.

And at such insolent straightforwardness, Kiyuku forgot his shrewd plans and felt her answer tumble forth in a graceless temper, "Because you make me nervous and I don't know what any of this means."

With that, feeling childish and vulnerable, she sunk into her chair and pouted. She knew Byakuya was watching her. She knew that it was not a very noble thing for her to be sulking. However, defeated in a game she hadn't even wanted to play, she simply couldn't help herself.

A huff. Possibly a roll of his eyes. Byakuya shook his head at her. "You're too difficult for your own good."

He bowed to kiss her again, this time on the lips with a firm and insistent pressure. He had kissed her gently at the wedding – under the moonlight and amongst the hydrangea – but now there was a starved quality to it, a desperation in the way he grasped the back of her neck. Kiyuku's heart did a skittish jump as she leaned into him, disregarding his earlier cunning, clutching the collar of his haori. In a charmed moment of spontaneity, the tip of her tongue traced his own. Tea. Something like black cherries. Wonderful and tangible and way better than dreaming. She pressed her hands to his chest; his lips slinked across her features to kiss her jawline.

Then Hinamori marched in. "Aramiya-taichou, the reports from the latest Rukongai incident have been approved and the feedback on Kurosa… Oh my goodness!"

Byakuya shot up to stand and Kiyuku stared wide-eyed at her lieutenant, feeling like there was probably spit glistening around her mouth.

"Taichou! I'm leaving right now! I didn't see anything!" Hinamori scrambled backwards, dropping some papers but not bothering to notice. "Sorry! Next time I'll knock. Sorry, taichou!"

A distressed close of the door. Byakuya and Kiyuku glanced at each other. He looked to be unruffled while she felt her face burning as though the last hour had been spent in the sun. Hinamori's ghost seemed to linger before them, a harmless but nonetheless ominous presence serving only to dampen Kiyuku's previous overexcitement.

"I wasn't expecting her," she muttered.

"No."

"I'll tell her not to say anything."

"There's no need for that."

Byakuya's nonchalance, especially now that there was actually something for the Seireitei gossips to gossip about, surprised and annoyed Kiyuku. Yes, Hinamori wasn't exactly likely to go about spewing such news – still, the situation needed to be quelled. Kiyuku said so, and Byakuya only hummed.

"At any rate," he looked down to her once more, running his palm along her cheek. "Stop being so unreasonable. I expect you at the Manor for lunch on your day off."

And Kiyuku, only half-irritated by his pretentious firmness, accepted the invitation.


	31. Personal Questions

Chapter 31  
Personal Questions

It was only after having walked in on Aramiya-taichou and Kuchiki-taichou that Hinamori realised how little she knew about her captain.

Not to say that she didn't like Aramiya-taichou, of course. She liked her very much; it was easy working as her lieutenant. Some of the other officers had complained about the increased workload, but Hinamori didn't think it was so bad. Aramiya-taichou was always very accommodating and always grateful for peoples' efforts. When her subordinates worked hard they were rewarded with big smiles and extra days off. When someone needed help – with paperwork or training or personal issues – Aramiya-taichou always made time in her schedule to be there for them.

Besides her obvious captainly qualities though, Hinamori liked Aramiya-taichou because she didn't force herself on anyone. With the fifth squad still licking their wounds after Aizen-sama's betrayal, everyone had expected it to be hard to adjust to a new captain. They had all loved Aizen-sama – no, absolutely _worshipped _him – and were burned to realise that they'd been manipulated. However, Aramiya-taichou was not out for her squad's love. She demanded their respect and worked for their trust but their love was irrelevant to her. And somehow it made everyone, especially Hinamori, feel safe. They weren't in a position to be hurt again by their captain. To be taken advantage of – and it was this sense of safety which allowed them all to adjust and adapt without issue.

Frankly, it seemed possible that this had been deliberate on Aramiya-taichou's part. Perhaps, in an official sort of way, she loved _them_: teaching and valuing and caring for her squad without expecting anything but their loyalty and faith in return.

Hinamori appreciated these things, but she'd used them as an excuse to let her lingering fears – of betrayal, of desertion – get the better of her.

So in a way, after the embarrassment had subsided, she was glad of having walked in on Aramiya-taichou and Kuchiki-taichou. It was a reminder that her captain was also a person. One with needs and wants, likes and dislikes; one who was worth getting to know.

As an apology for having interrupted Aramiya-taichou and Kuchiki-taichou's… whatever they were doing… Hinamori made cookies. One thing she_ did _know about her captain was that she loved snacks. Bad day for taichou? Bring her snacks. Good day? Bring her snacks. Romantic rendezvous with a very handsome and very unattainable man? _Bring her snacks_. It was a foolproof plan that the whole squad had caught on to.

Chocolate chip. Cinnamon. Dark chocolate and pistachio. Hinamori wrapped her freshly baked goods in a box and took them to Aramiya-taichou's office.

Her captain always looked happy to see her. "Hinamori," she stood from her desk in greeting. "I thought you had the day off?"

"I do, taichou. I'm sorry if I'm disturbing you – I just wanted to give you these," Hinamori handed her captain the box of cookies, watching with pleasure as Aramiya-taichou grinned.

"Ooh!" she cooed, opening the box without hesitation. "You shouldn't have."

"It's just a small thank you for all the work you've been doing for the fifth squad," Hinamori smiled. "And also an apology for my interrupting your… well… your meeting with Kuchiki-taichou yesterday. I should have knocked."

Previously delighted, Aramiya-taichou's face grew pink and tense. Like a flower shutting itself up against the cold. She looked at Hinamori with an expression that wasn't so serious as it was bashful. "Oh. Please don't worry about that," she uttered. "I was just as surprised by the… _meeting_, as you say. Otherwise I would have informed you that I was preoccupied."

Hinamori didn't know what to say. So she said nothing.

"Actually, I did want to speak to you, if that's okay. I won't keep you long," Aramiya-taichou sat back down, gesturing for Hinamori to do so as well. She placed the open box on her desk and nudged it towards Hinamori: a subtle offer for her to help herself. Which was surprising – her captain didn't usually share snacks. She may have been generous with other resources, but food was a whole other story. Hinamori stared at the box for a moment. Neither of them ventured to eat anything. Looking uncomfortably stern, Aramiya-taichou asked, "Have you told anyone?"

"Not at all, taichou. I will carry what I know to the grave." It was the truth. Out of a new sense of protectiveness for her captain, Hinamori hadn't told and wouldn't tell a single soul about what she'd seen.

Aramiya-taichou smiled, a softening in the awkward scrunch of her features. "Good. I know it's not exactly a secret that Byaku- I mean, Kuchiki-taichou. It's not a secret that Kuchiki-taichou and I are more familiar than most, but I would like to keep the details as private as possible."

She was right. There wasn't really any secret about her and Kuchiki-taichou's special relationship – after Renji-san told Rangiku about the banana thing, word had spread like wildfire and now almost the whole of Seireitei seemed to know about the two of them. A lot of the women were waiting on the latest development in the noble romance, as though it were a fairytale story.

"Of course, taichou. I understand." Hinamori paused, waiting for her captain to continue. But the two of them only looked at each other. "Umm. Taichou. Could I ask you something? A personal question? Forgive me, I know it's none of my business, but there's something I've been wondering."

Aramiya-taichou eyed her curiously for a moment. "Go ahead."

Though it was now Hinamori's turn to feel embarrassed, a girlish sense of curiosity spurred her on. "Was yesterday the first time you and Kuchiki-taichou kissed?"

"No – it was the second time."

"Is it nice?"

"Is what nice?"

"Kissing."

"Kissing…" Aramiya-taichou echoed the word, wistful and reflective. "Have you never kissed anyone before, Hinamori?"

Hinamori sank into herself, feeling a blush spread across her face. No, she hadn't kissed anyone before. She'd thought about it a few times, but that was the extent of her experience. Aramiya-taichou wasn't too much older than her and was much more reserved, so it was possible that she was just as inexpert. On the other hand though, she was really pretty. She was also a noble. Maybe lots of other men besides Kuchiki-taichou were trying to woo her and Hinamori just didn't know about it.

Aramiya-taichou smiled again. A warm, almost sisterly smile. "Kissing Kuchiki-taichou is nice. Very nice. Besides that though, I wouldn't really know – I've only kissed one other boy and I was incapacitated then," she leaned forward. "I haven't told anyone about that though, so I'd prefer you also keep it to yourself."

"You're telling me all your secrets, taichou," Hinamori giggled, her face still hot but not unpleasantly so, less embarrassed now as she was surprised. "Can I ask you another question?"

"Please do."

"Do you like Kuchiki-taichou?"

Aramiya-taichou took more time to consider this than her previous answers. While she thought, she pulled a cookie from the box: her favourite, the dark chocolate and pistachio. She considered it in between her fingers, twisting it about like the finest of specimens. Then with a sigh, she answered, "Yes. I think I do – though I wish I could say I don't."

"What? Why?"

"I've never wanted to like anyone. It's too much of a distraction."

"You don't seem very distracted," Hinamori smiled, recalling her captain's vehement productivity.

Aramiya-taichou, with the beauty of humming bird, laughed. A genuine, gentle laugh – the first that Hinamori had heard from her. "I'm trying my best."

Then she asked if there was a special guy in Hinamori's life, and Hinamori hesitated to answer. She wanted to get to know Aramiya-taichou. She did want to be on close terms with her captain as most of the other lieutenants were with theirs. But she wasn't sure if she was ready to risk the vulnerability of it yet. Then again, though, Aramiya-taichou wasn't exactly a very vulnerable person either – it must have taken a lot of for her to reveal what she had about Kuchiki-taichou. Hinamori bit her lip. Bore her heart's uncomfortable tapping. Told Aramiya-taichou about her lifelong crush on Shiro-kun and, inexplicably, felt relieved afterwards.

"Oh. I would never have thought," Aramiya-taichou said with authentic interest. "That's very sweet."

Hinamori giggled uncertainly. "Thank you?"

"Actually, Hinamori, it was nice talking to you about something other than work," Aramiya-taichou suddenly seemed to glow. She continued to twist the cookie she held, looking between it and Hinamori. "Now that you're privy to everything, I'd like it if you would do something for me. Nothing serious – just a small favour."

Inexplicably, Hinamori was excited by the prospect of an off-the-record job. She and Aramiya-taichou were bonding already. "Anything, taichou."

"Would you teach me how to bake?"


	32. Invitation

Chapter 32  
Invitation

As had always been the case, their visits were mainly around dinner at the Manor or in Byakuya's private quarters. On a more spontaneous occasion, they'd have lunch – but this was few and far between and the two of them generally didn't see each other during the day except on official business. It could've been because they were both simply very busy. Or it could've been a way of keeping away from prying eyes; indeed, it was not the most effective measure, but it was something.

As such, when someone interrupted Kiyuku's tea break it was usually an emergency or it was Kyoraku-taichou checking in on her. Kiyuku didn't mind either of these things, usually even enjoyed the latter. However, she was fondly surprised to find not her former captain nor a harried squad member at her door, but Byakuya. "May I come in?"

Kiyuku nodded, stepping aside for him to brush past. She considered closing the door; thought maybe it would be best to leave it open; closed it anyway, all the while watching Byakuya's wide back as he move deeper into her space and eyed one of the flowers.

"This one's new," he observed, fingering the honey-coloured petals of a boat orchid.

"It's from Aniko and her husband," Kiyuku confirmed. "They got it for me on their honeymoon."

"I see. It's lovely."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "You didn't come all the way here to talk about orchids, though, surely."

Byakuya turned his attention to her. There was a dark glimmer about his eyes – a slate grey sparkling like water on leaves – though the rest of his features continued to be impassively carved as ever. Marble. Cool, white, chiseled marble. He'd only just walked in and Kiyuku wanted to...

"Why would you say so?" Byakuya asked, interrupting her train of thought – thankfully.

With a snaking smirk, Kiyuku replied, "Well if you _do _want to talk about orchids, you might want to sit down. I have a lot to say on the matter."

"Spare me." He came towards her, pulling a small envelope from his sleeve and handing it to Kiyuku. "This arrived from your parents this morning."

On the front of the envelope, which itself was made from beautiful, delicate paper, Byakuya's name was inscribed. Her father's hand: sharp, calligraphy characters. Fortunately his writing style was much more regal than Kiyuku's own. She turned the envelope over – it had already been opened. "What did they have to say?" she questioned.

"They've invited me for dinner."

"When?" A tight wave began to envelop her chest.

"A week from now."

That was when she was supposed to be going to her parents for dinner. Kiyuku inhaled deeply, feeling the muscles down her arm grow tense. "Did they say why they've invited you?"

"Would you prefer I decline the invitation?" Byakuya asked.

"That's your decision," Kiyuku shrugged. She knew she was not doing a very good job of hiding her annoyance – both with her parents for organizing this situation, and with her sisters who most certainly had something to do with it – and she wished that Byakuya would stop looking at her. Just for a moment. Even a fraction of a moment.

But he only continued to gaze into her face. When he spoke again, his voice was a lulling combination of deadpan and tender, and it made Kiyuku's heart throb. "I want to know what you want."

"What _I _want?"

"Did I stutter?"

Kiyuku considered this. What she wanted. What did she want in this particular case? She wanted him to take his clothes off – had for a while now. But that was not the answer to give. With a sigh, she said, "It would be rude to turn down an invitation without a valid reason."

"Correct," Byakuya nodded.

"And I assume you don't have a valid reason."

"I don't," he confirmed.

"Then I wouldn't want you to offend my parents."

"That's what you _wouldn't _want…"

Kiyuku rolled her eyes at him, unable to decide whether he was being pedantic about technicalities or if he was teasing her. "Just keep quiet and accept."

"As you wish," the corner of his mouth turned imperceptibly upwards for a near-imperceptible moment in an attractive half-smirk. "On a more serious note, I need to ask you something about your zanpakuto."

By the sudden change of subject, Kiyuku felt jolted. "What about it?"

"Have you used it recently?"

The last time she'd taken out her zanpakuto was to exterminate a series of hollows in Rukongai – that had been any number of weeks ago. She tried to recall exactly how many, but couldn't, and told Byakuya so, mentioning though that she still meditated upon her sword fairly often. "Why do you ask?"

He didn't answer immediately, looking contemplative and perhaps even a shade concerned. He'd asked her about her zanpakuto before – how its abilities worked, the nature of her Bankai, if the bladed fans were at all effective in close combat – but this time there was something peculiar about his question. Kiyuku couldn't quite put her finger on it. "There's something I'm curious about," Byakuya said at last. "Would you be able to meet me in the sixth squad's training grounds tomorrow evening?"

"Are you inviting me to spar with you?" Kiyuku grinned, forgetting her previous irritation and enjoying the thought of using her zanpakuto on Byakuya.

He confirmed that that was indeed what he was doing. Kiyuku gladly accepted and immediately began to count the hours.


	33. Bankai – Many-Splendored Bloom

Chapter 33  
Bankai – Many-Splendored Bloom

Having such a large and unwieldy Bankai, Renji's technique was still sloppy. His movements imprecise and predictable. Though he was making progress with which Byakuya was satisfied, he wore out quickly – sweat dropping from his forehead in unsightly shimmers, face contorting with fatigue after every action – and in turn he became careless.

But Byakuya was an unfazed teacher. He continued to bombard Renji despite the apparent tiredness, sending forth the blades of his Senbonzakura in unsympathetic waves. Renji managed to disperse them the first time round. Sometimes the second time if he was paying attention. The third time he always faltered, as was the case now. Out of cockiness, he ignored his strain and set Zabimaru in a direct path towards Byakuya. The boned snake-head was wide and ready to strike. In its open jaws, the red glow of the Baboon Bone Cannon was alighted. However, before Renji could even come close to releasing his Bankai's final attack, Byakuya directed a single, severe blow to the serpent's head.

There was an awful crack. In a massive shower of Byakuya's blades, Renji's Bankai crashed downwards: a spiral of shattering vertebrae, a mess of red fur and bone.

"You're too rash in your attacks," Byakuya said, his lieutenant collapsing to sit. "With such a slow Bankai, it's essential that you be more strategic about your battle."

"Strategy. Right," Renji huffed, looking hot and uncomfortable. "I'll remember that next time." He glanced around at the defeated ruin of his zanpakuto; already, it had begun to dissipate into spirit particles, vanishing with only a slight red flicker left in its wake.

Byakuya regathered and sheathed his own sword. "That'll be all for today."

"It's still early, taichou. There's time to go at it once more."

"I have a previous arrangement to be attending to." Turning away, Byakuya signaled for Renji to leave. "We will train again in another two days."

"Oh. Alright. Thank you, Kuchiki-taichou." Renji wished him a goodnight and left the training grounds, appearing only half-disappointed by the shortness of the session.

It was only when his lieutenant was far from the ground's gate and well out of sight that a third presence, with her fluttering reiatsu and blossomy perfume, appeared beside Byakuya. "You're not very easy on your lieutenant, are you?" Kiyuku said, voice charming and soft.

"He wouldn't learn anything if I were."

She was smiling up at him, a gossamer air of expectancy about her lovely little face. There was a scarf around her neck – a thick and creamy wool, heavy and warm. It was late into autumn now: the sun set much earlier into the evening and Kiyuku happened to get cold very easily. Strange, since her hands were always so warm.

"Are you tired? I don't mind waiting if you want to rest a bit." She wasn't concerned. She was teasing him.

"No need," Byakuya said, once again unsheathing his sword. "Although this isn't something I want to drag out. I'm more interested in your Bankai than anything else, so I'd appreciate it if you would use it as soon as possible."

Kiyuku seemed taken aback. "You're no fun."

"I'm serious." With that, Byakuya held out his zanpakuto. "Scatter, _Senbonzakura_."

Kiyuku was a quick thinker. Agile, composed, she shunpo'ed herself to the edge of the training ground and released her sword. "Distort and diminish, _Mubōna_ _Yorokobi_." The two fans, each closed in a thin and solid shape, glistened sharply against the evening's light.

Byakuya's blades rushed toward her. She opened a fan and, with a delicate swirl of her wrist, sent flying two blades of her own. Feather-light, almost invisible but for their shimmers of silver, they spun and danced right through the current of Senbonzakura's attack. It was when they were but milliseconds from Byakuya's bicep and thigh that he shunpo'ed away. As he did so, the bladed petals of his zanpakuto dispersed – only to reveal no Kiyuku, her body gone and her reiatsu concealed.

He heard her before he saw her, a disembodied voice next to his ear as she whispered, "Too slow."

But Byakuya evaded the second attack with ease. He spun to face Kiyuku, set his zanpakuto's release against her again – but once more, she vanished. Byakuya hadn't realised she was so fast. What was more, seemingly out of nowhere a blade came spinning towards him, too close now for him to dodge. In a single, painless motion, it sliced his forearm.

"I wouldn't normally be so quick to use my Bankai like this, but since you asked…" Kiyuku grinned as she reappeared in front of him, close enough for her fingers to intertwine with his as she said, "_Bankai_ – Many-Splendored Bloom."

At the sound of her voice, a tingling began in Byakuya's arm. An itch. A burn. It spread up and out in indiscernible paths like roots through his body. He could still feel Kiyuku's hand in his – and then he couldn't – and then he could, only now her fingers seemed to have multiplied and were crushing his bones. There wasn't any pain, but there was a ghostly whiteness clouding his vision, a mist which seemed to grow thicker before dissipating slightly and then growing thicker once again. A ringing noise faded in and out between his temples. A metallic taste coated his tongue. And then it happened.

Pink began to dot itself in the corners of Byakuya's eyes. Kiyuku's face – he committed it to memory, suddenly enveloped by the terrible sense that he would never see it again – broke out in a nauseating bloom of distorted colours and shapes and textures. They seemed to move through Byakuya. Through him, against him, with him, around him. The rest of the world caved in on itself: melting, turning upside down, curving in unnatural directions and changing to unnatural colours. If there were words for it, Byakuya would've said he could smell sound or that he could hear tastes. His senses collided violently in a kaleidoscopic nightmare. He reminded himself that it was an illusion. There was no need to panic. But his heart began to pound – he could feel it in his eyes, hear it in his stomach – and for a moment that felt like an eternity, he was sure he would pass out.

A flickering, like faulty lights. Byakuya glimpsed a piece of reality and just as quickly returned to the horrific bash of sensations. He caught Kiyuku's face – a confused and concerned memory, her beautiful blue eyes wide as she looked into his – and then everything stopped. Black for a moment. Heavy upon his chest.

"You can open your eyes, Byakuya."

He did so with surprising vigour and had never been so relieved to see the sixth squad's training grounds.

"Are you alright?" Kiyuku giggled.

"That was unpleasant," he said simply, recognizing the understatement but refusing to acknowledge it. Only then did he realise how tightly he was clutching Kiyuku's hand.

"You asked for it," she shrugged, suddenly growing serious. "There was something weird about it though. My Bankai, I mean."

Byakuya, heart beginning to slow as he took in the undistorted details of his surroundings, looked at her solemnly. "Weird how?"

"I don't quite know how to explain. But everything felt… violated, somehow."

Yes. That was the word he'd been looking for. _Violated_. Some days before, when he'd been training with Renji, there'd been a slight uncertainty in Senbonzakura's attacks. They'd been slow, almost awkward, and had caused a number of unwelcome slips that Byakuya was not willing to mention. He didn't tell Renji, though he was certain his lieutenant had noticed. "I see," Byakuya hummed in response to Kiyuku's explanation, relaxing his grip on her hand without letting go.

"Was that why you asked me to use my Bankai?" she tilted her head.

"Correct. I had a similar problem a few days ago."

Kiyuku's lips narrowed into a thin, kissable line. "Any idea why it might have happened?"

Byakuya had his suspicions, though they were fleeting and mostly unfounded. "No. I originally thought I was simply unwell. Now that you've experienced the same thing, though, I can rule out the possibility of fatigue or sickness."

"So I was your guinea pig?"

"Something like that."

Kiyuku pouted. Byakuya wanted to trace his finger along her mouth – but before he could do so, Kiyuku replaced her pout with a small, smug smile and said, "You look like you need a drink. Was my ability a little too much for you?"

"Don't be so cocky," he said, wrapping his free hand around her chin and pulling her face to his. "It's unflattering."

They kissed in the fading light.


	34. After Dark

Chapter 34  
After Dark

Kiyuku's living quarters generally felt much emptier than her office. Of course, there were orchids: a dusty-rose moth orchid on the shelf, a yellow and violet cattleya orchid on the coffee table. However, without the stacks of paperwork, the files and the books, it appeared rather stark and unlived in. It was always clean; with excessive perfuming and creaming and washing, Kiyuku had managed to replace the smell of the old captain – rather ominous and dusty – with her own; she kept the kimono from Byakuya boxed neatly near her futon. Apart from that though, most of her more personal items were in her office and the space didn't quite feel as homely as Kiyuku would have liked.

At least the small kitchen wasn't empty. There were fruits. Sweets. Some of the cookies Hinamori had tried to help Kiyuku bake but which had turned out globular and rather too salty. More importantly though, there was a bottle of sake waiting to be opened. Obviously Kiyuku didn't drink sake herself but there was no telling what kind of occasion would call for something so strongly alcoholic, which was why she'd snuck a bottle out from her parents' expensive stash.

And she was grateful for it now.

Byakuya, after their earlier spar, had accepted the offer of a drink in her private quarters. He recovered from the effects of her Bankai rather quickly – Kiyuku wondered whether it had anything to do with the anomalous feeling of disruption she'd experienced; normally it would take a few hours before recovering completely – but he was still pale and wide eyed, looking disconcerted by the solidity of reality.

Subtly, he threw back the first cup of sake in a single, smooth movement.

Kiyuku giggled as she poured him more. "Are you alright?"

"You have a nasty ability," Byakuya said as though he were chiding her for it.

"Kyoraku-taichou used to say so as well. Though he always looked more thrilled about it than you do." Indeed, Kyoraku-taichou had been over-the-moon about her Bankai. Though he'd never used his own to train her, he'd often observed how remarkably similar each of their abilities were – and Kiyuku was always elated to hear so. Any comparisons she could draw between her own abilities and those of her former captain were achievements in themselves.

Byakuya only hummed, otherwise continuing to drink in silence. He took the second cup of sake with more ease while Kiyuku sipped at her plum wine.

She still wasn't sure what exactly was going on between them. What their feelings meant. If it was all a secret or not. Over the weeks since the wedding, they'd slipped into a comfortable and unnamed affection – it had almost begun to feel more familiar, more natural, to be with Byakuya than to be without him. He kissed her often and in ways that made her heart pound. She spent every free minute of her day looking forward to seeing him again. There was an intimate safety in his presence – but Kiyuku couldn't shake the knowledge that it was a no-strings-attached kind of situation. She hadn't forgotten about Hisana. She knew she couldn't expect anything from Byakuya. She reminded herself of it often: shouldn't get too close, he's not yours to keep. She _knew _it, but she didn't feel it. Especially not when they were together like this.

The confusion of thought and feeling made Kiyuku restless.

She finished her wine much quicker than she'd intended. Out the window, the sky was black and empty; she got up to draw the curtains. Her feet were cold. Her stomach was starting to grumble – stupid of her to have drank without having eaten. Already, after but one glass, the alcohol was curling upon the boundary of her consciousness. Waiting. Making the ground waver slightly beneath her.

"Do you need something to eat?" she turned to Byakuya, realizing he probably hadn't had dinner either.

"No. This is fine."

"I have fruit," she prompted, not entirely sure of what she was trying to achieve after he'd just said no. "And some cookies, although they're not very good. What about…"

"Kiyuku."

Her name and his voice. It made for a strange combination – Kiyuku may have gotten used to the feel of his tongue against hers, but it would probably always surprise her when he said her name. Especially if he said it as he did now. "Yes?"

He held out his hand. "Come here."

As a figure of authority – the head of a Noble Family, a captain – it was not surprising that most of Byakuya's interactions circled into a play of power relations. Frankly, it made for quite a prominent dynamic. Being his acknowledged equal in almost all regards though – she was also a captain and also a noble and all of the things those two implied – Kiyuku had not experienced this herself. Perhaps that was partly what had allowed their relationship to develop as it had: there wasn't a boundary of station or power separating them. Now, however, Byakuya had let slip into his voice a commanding assumption of dominance. In the way he'd said her name. In the way his hand waited for her to take it.

Under normal circumstances it would have irritated Kiyuku to no end. But the glass of wine had made her giddy and, in an enamored moment, she figured she could tolerate it. She walked from the window to where Byakuya was sitting, wondering how such power exchange had translated into his… marriage.

Despite the hardness of his voice, he took her hand tenderly, stroking the back of it with his thumb while he stared up at her. "You surprise me."

She didn't understand what he meant and didn't ask. Instead, Kiyuku leaned her other hand on his shoulder and bent forward to kiss him. Impulsive, gentle – the first time she'd been the one to instigate a kiss. It felt strange. It felt vulnerable. Something like a slurred line of calligraphy. But it also felt good. Even better when Byakuya sighed into her lips and she could taste the bitter, sad flavor of sake. Under her haori, his hands snaked themselves onto her hips – everything else began to happen in a hazy rush too fast for Kiyuku to fully comprehend.

Byakuya pulled her down into his lap, one hand remaining heavy upon her hip bone while the other ventured to hold her nape. His skin was cool. Calming – and it drove a hungry throb through Kiyuku's chest. How easy it was to tell herself that this was fine. That the sudden aching at the base of her spine was nothing important. That her mother hadn't always warned her and her sisters about kissing boys – or, in this case, men – after dark. But this wasn't the same. This was… Kiyuku wasn't really sure what it was, but she liked it.

From her hip, Byakuya's fingers travelled up her ribcage, along her back and then down again. He tilted his head to kiss the curve of her jaw. Her neck. Her throat – and at the feeling, so striking and new, Kiyuku couldn't stifle a groan. There were explosions in her bones, alarm bells between her temples. But she shushed them; it wasn't so bad that Byakuya had hitched up the material of her hakama, or that he gripped the skin of her thighs with thrilling force. It wasn't so bad at all.

Kiyuku buried her own hands into the folds of his clothes, grazing the smooth, hard flesh of his chest. Steady heartbeats pounded against her fingertips. She felt his breath hitch beneath her palms.

Parting his lips over her collar bone, Byakuya bit into her skin gently – grasping the back of Kiyuku's thigh even more tightly as she squeaked in surprise.

Then suddenly, mouth lingering against her neck, he stopped.

Everything crashed back into vivid, sharp sense. Kiyuku became aware of the thin sliver of sweat against her nape, the mounting tenderness in places she didn't dare think of. She stared at her hands against Byakuya's skin. This was not how she'd expected her evening to go. But it was not an unpleasant turn of events – on the contrary, she would rather not have stopped. "Is something wrong?" she asked, angling herself away to look at Byakuya.

"We shouldn't be doing this," he said, returning her gaze seriously as he pulled her hakama back into place. His hand retreated from her thigh, the other loosening around her nape.

Dread welled up in Kiyuku's chest as the fragile air of magic began to dissipate. She gave her best attempt at a smile, but it felt brittle against her new anxiety. "Don't… I don't mind this…"

"That's not the problem."

Gently, he tried to push her off of him, but Kiyuku gripped his shoulders with agitated vigor. "Then _what's_ the problem?"

It was a stupid question. She knew what the problem was. But she wasn't willing to give up her new position in his lap. Not yet – not while her heart was still banging about inside her chest, or while her groin still ached. Byakuya didn't respond for a while, only staring at her with an unsettling intensity.

"I asked you a question," Kiyuku demanded eventually, feeling her face grow hot with irritation.

Taking her wrists in his hands, Byakuya removed her hold on him without so much as a breath. "I said we shouldn't be doing this. I don't need to qualify it further."

Kiyuku licked against the dryness of her lips. A swirling mess of temper began to rear its head in the pit of her gut. Indeed, he didn't need to explain anything – Kiyuku knew very well that he'd probably been thinking about Hisana the whole time. "Fine," she slid out of his lap, feeling hollow and incomplete. "Then leave."

Silence. Byakuya's eyes may as well have burned holes into her back. "Don't act like this."

"I'm not acting like anything," Kiyuku retorted, arms crossed firmly across her chest.

"You're acting like a child."

"Leave."

The next few seconds were quiet and full of uneasy tension. Byakuya got up soundlessly – looking slightly mussed but otherwise composed as ever – and made to leave. Kiyuku watched him out of the corner of her eye, growing miserable and frustrated. Her sisters had told her once that it was painful for men to be aroused without any promise of release; she imagined it must have been rather like what she felt just then. At the door, Byakuya hesitated, his hand on the handle though he made no move to open it. Kiyuku held her breath, quietly praying that he would change his mind and come back to her. But without glancing back, he opened the door and disappeared into the night.


	35. Mubōna Yorokobi

Chapter 35  
Mubōna Yorokobi

She always met them in a field: one of watercolours and paper thin petals. Flowers' bodies wafted upon a breeze. The sky was bruised beautiful and black by clouds threatening to send forth rain. This was her inner world – _their _inner world – and against the silence she always heard their voices. Crisp, vivid, comforting voices that resonated with the very depths of her own being.

Only today, something was wrong.

They whispered against her cheek. She felt their words tremble against her skin. But they were distant, something of an echoing memory or like faraway thunder. Usually so boisterous and sharp, now they muttered miserably; usually driven and meticulous about the order of their world, now they let things fall apart. Some of the flowers had started to die. A polluted scent hung heavy in the air.

She tried to coax them out. To draw them close once again – but in a mocking hush they refused.


	36. Trouble in Paradise

Chapter 36  
Trouble in Paradise

The day was nearing its end when Nanao-chan announced that someone was there to see him. Shunsui yawned lethargically and stretched his legs. Already, he was three cups into his sake, having planned on doing no official business for the rest of the evening. There was an autumn chill in the air, a golden splash across the sky. He hoped this visit was nothing serious, that he could get back to his evening drink promptly – but when Kiyuku-chan appeared in the garden, he was both delighted and relieved.

"My, my, I'd forgotten what you looked like without your captain's haori on," Shunsui grinned, gesturing to Kiyuku's casual ensemble. Her face was pale as the clouds, hair red as the leaves. Without the massive white puff of the haori over her shoulders, she looked much tinier than Shunsui remembered. Tiny – and incredibly perturbed. "What's the matter?"

"I'm struggling to communicate with my zanpakuto. Is this in any way normal?"

Kiyuku-chan tended to be to-the-point, but not abrupt. As such, the new sharpness in her tone surprised Shunsui. He sat up and stared at her delicate features, all so twisted with exasperation. After some half-hearted thought, he explained, "It could happen when someone's experiencing too much emotional instability." He poured himself more sake and offered some to Kiyuku.

But she ignored it. "Okay. That's not the problem though. I'm not emotionally unstable."

"Are you sure about that?" Shunsui teased, considering the vehement sizzles in her reiatsu.

"I'm only frustrated with my zanpakuto. At first, they were sullen and I felt sorry for them, but now they've become uninhibitedly mocking and it infuriates me."

It was unusual to hear someone speak about their zanpakuto spirit in the plural – of course, Shunsui and Joushiro did so themselves, each having a pair of unique spirits residing in their own swords, but other than that it was quite uncommon. Even rare. However, from the earliest days of her training Kiyuku had heard two perfectly distinct voices. It made sense, since her abilities were decidedly twofold: to dull the senses or to excite them even more so. Her personality also tended to be a playground of curious contradictions, which warranted a zanpakuto of similar complexity.

Shunsui tried to think if he'd had any problems with his own zanpakuto, but couldn't recall. "Maybe you're working your zanpakuto too hard – that's _also _possible. After all, achieving Bankai is no easy feat. One's spiritual energy can be severely depleted after doing so."

Kiyuku huffed, clearly finding no help from Shunsui's suggestions. "Not possible. I achieved my Bankai almost two years ago. They've had plenty of time to recover their energy."

Shunsui chuckled. "Is _that _how much time has passed already? That means you've been a captain for…"

"Six months."

"My little third seat is all grown up," Shunsui gave a teasing sigh. "Why don't you sit down, Kiyuku-chan? I'm sure there's a valid reason for this."

"Kuchiki has also been having problems," Kiyuku spat with a subtle but surprising amount of venom. "It's not just me."

At this, Shunsui hummed. Kiyuku _and _Kuchiki. Could there have been trouble in paradise? He hadn't come across a situation where romance had affected the functioning of a zanpakuto – but then again, this romance involved two captains with immensely volatile spiritual pressure. "Are you and Kuchiki having problems?" he asked seriously.

Kiyuku's features contorted into a childish look of dismay. Her mouth opened and closed for some moments as though she were gasping for air. "I don't know what you mean."

"I think you do," Shunsui gave her a meaningful smile. "You haven't done a very good job of hiding it."

Her face grew adorably pink. "I… There's nothing…"

With a wave of his hand, her denials were dismissed. Indeed, for the type of people she and Byakuya were, Shunsui had thought things were going rather too well. There was bound to be a blow up at some point, a nasty spat between two strong personalities – perhaps it was happening now. It was there in the way Kiyuku had hissed his name, and in the mortified glow of her features at the suggestion of any such romantic troubles. Shunsui chuckled, "Why don't you make up with Kuchiki-san and _then _worry about your zanpakuto? I'd say that's a good place to start."

Kiyuku offered him no response, looking to the ground like a child scolded.

"In the meantime, sit and have a drink with your old captain," Shunsui held out his cup for her to take, but she shook her head dully.

"My parents have invited me for dinner. I'm already going to be late."

"Ah, a pity," Shunsui withdrew the cup and took a large sip from it. "Some other time then."

In a sullen swish, Kiyuku left the garden. Shunsui considered her absence and the unsettled aura she left behind – he stared out into nothing, holding his sake cup in one hand and tapping his sheathed zanpakuto with the other. His lighthearted ignorance was but a thin façade; this he knew. Certainly, though he himself hadn't experienced distortions or fluctuations in his swords' reiatsu – _not yet _– Nanao-chan had mentioned a common concern amongst some of the lieutenants. Moments of unresponsiveness. Slow reactions. Distant voices.

It was all very subtle for now, not yet any real cause for concern. But if the snaking fog was making its way to the level of the captains – those who were most in control; most intimate with their swords – perhaps there was more to it than simple troubles in paradise.


	37. A Temporary Restoration

Chapter 37  
A Temporary Restoration

Kiyuku walked back to her barracks that evening feeling heavy and dejected.

Byakuya hadn't shown up to the dinner.

Her parents had assumed she'd known – he'd sent his apologies that morning; apparently something had come up which needed attending to. It was no matter though! There were still a number of other guests with whom Kiyuku could mingle: the Shihouins, some of her father's buddies from the Central 46, one or two of her mother's friends. Apparently the evening had been intended as more of a party than an actual dinner. A much more subtle ploy to catch Kiyuku and Byakuya sneaking lovey glances at each other. Not that it mattered in the end: Kiyuku had been deserted and ended up being quiet and miserable for the rest of the evening.

She'd excused herself immediately after dessert, having chewed through her food without any pleasure, and now trudged through the streets of Seireitei. Naked without her haori. Lonely and disappointed. It was hard to say what exactly she'd expected – an apology from Byakuya was rarer than a member of the eleventh squad not liking conflict, and she certainly wasn't about to apologise herself. But she had hoped they would just… resume. Hold hands under the table. Walk back together, maybe kiss under the moonlight. Like nothing at all had happened.

Though his calling her a child the other night had been meant as an insult, a pompous assertion of his dominance and maturity, it seemed now he was following suit. It should have irritated Kiyuku and of course, it did to a certain extent. But much more than that, she was consumed with dread over the possibility that Byakuya actually didn't want to see her again. Perhaps he'd realised he didn't like her all that much. That she was too young or too intense or too little like Hisana.

Kiyuku sighed. There was a terrible knot in her stomach. Never in a million years did she think it would be a bad thing to not be like Hisana.

It was late and no one was out. Kuchiki Manor wasn't far – Byakuya would be there; it had been his day off and he wouldn't have spent it at the sixth squad's barracks. Pausing, Kiyuku considered the ache throughout her insides, the slow constriction of her chest. She wanted to see him. Even if just to tell him he was dumb, that he was the one acting like a child. She. Wanted. To. See. Him. But she also knew she was better than that. Byakuya may have been proud but she was as well. It was absurd if he expected her to be the one to come crawling back like some needy infant.

But right now she felt like exactly that. _A needy infant_ – and so she ended up marching through the gates of Kuchiki Manor despite the supposed dictates of her supposed pride.

The head maid looked viciously annoyed upon opening the door, though her features immediately softened. "Aramiya-sama! We weren't expecting you at… this hour."

Kiyuku offered her sweetest smile. "My apologies. I know it's late, but I need to speak with Byaku- Kuchiki-san."

"I'm afraid Kuchiki-sama has already retired for the evening, but I would be able to relay a message to him in the morning."

"No," still smiling, Kiyuku spoke as a noble to a servant. It seemed she, just like Byakuya, was also prone to exploiting her position. "I'm afraid it's rather urgent."

With a sense of having been defeated, the maid allowed Kiyuku in and showed her to the drawing room. Kuchiki-sama would be with her in just a moment. Kuchiki-sama would probably want to get dressed first. Kiyuku was very pleased when Byakuya walked in some minutes later still disorderly and even a bit disorientated. His yukata had clearly been thrown on in a rush, tied loosely by an obi sash and hanging open around his chest. He was bare foot. His hair was loose. Indeed, Kiyuku was pleased but also a bit irked – she had not expected him to look so handsome.

He looked worriedly at her. "Are you alright?"

"Why didn't you come to my parents' dinner this evening?"

His shoulders seemed to relax under the thin yukata. The furrow in his brow smoothened. "The maid told me this was urgent," he said on a sigh, sliding the shoji door closed behind him.

"It is. Can't you see I'm very distressed?"

He glared at her. "There was business I needed to attend to."

"_Really_?" Kiyuku knew this wasn't the case. If there'd been any business urgent enough for him to have been called out, she would have heard about it.

A pregnant silence. The two of them stared at each other for some time. There was an intimate air of vulnerability about Byakuya's half-awake state, the grey shadows beneath his eyes unusual and the mess of his hair boyishly endearing. A face Kiyuku wouldn't mind waking up to in the mornings.

Byakuya shook his head and came to sit down. "I assumed it wouldn't have bothered you if I weren't at the dinner."

Kiyuku frowned at him, not wanting to answer but doing so anyway, "I wanted to see you."

"I didn't think you did."

The knot in her stomach did an uncomfortable sequence of tightening and relaxing. She bit the inside of her cheek, felt her fingers beginning to shake – though it could have been because of the cold. "What about you?" she asked, feeling like a girl talking to her school crush: pathetic and maudlin. "Did you not want to see me?"

Byakuya didn't respond again, though he moved his arm to balance precariously behind her back. His eyes were dark, his breathing steady. Kiyuku didn't know what to make of the expression on his face.

"How do you always manage to make things so difficult?" he questioned at last.

She could easily have asked him the same thing. It wasn't supposed to be so difficult – even in all her inexperience, Kiyuku knew her feelings for Byakuya weren't supposed to be bound up in such a messy dance with frustration and uncertainty. Even more so with an ever-growing sense of guilt. The fact that she had expected it didn't serve to ease the sentimental turmoil, of course, and she carried around with her a constant anxiety that anything and everything could pierce their delicately established bond. Byakuya himself didn't seem to be on particularly stable ground either – and Kiyuku realised she had just as much of a hold on him as he had on her.

"Being difficult," she said in response, sliding into the space between his arm and his flank, "is one of my more refined talents."

"Clearly."

They didn't kiss, but their faces were close enough to have done so. It was warm in the alcove formed by Byakuya's arm and torso. Warm and very safe. Kiyuku was almost tempted to lean her head on his shoulder, but the act felt rather too passive somehow. Childish, maybe. With his other hand, Byakuya ran the backs of his fingers down her cheek. He twisted the stray pieces of her between his fingertips, pressed more firmly when he touched her neck.

Something fell back into place, unnamed and vague but consoling nonetheless. A fog that had lifted, or a lock that had opened.

"It's late. You should stay here tonight."

A yukata had already been laid out for her in one of the guest bedrooms – one that was much too large and smelled like Byakuya – and Kiyuku slept soundly. So soundly, in fact, that she was shocked to wake up back in her own private quarters the next morning, alone and tingling all over.


	38. Threat

Chapter 38  
Threat

A threat was looming. The more he communicated with his zanpakuto, the clearer it became. There were long silences, hesitations, signs – something wasn't right and Byakuya's suspicions were growing ever more palpable by the day. He scoured the Manor library on his days off, read and reread his grandfather's documents and letters. He remembered being warned, but he didn't know what he was supposed to be looking out for.

Worse still, he was distracted.

By Kiyuku. By everything she did. The way she flounced around Seireitei in the flutter of her haori. The way her hair bounced. How she spoke and ate and smiled. It was a constant task to keep himself from adoring her more than he already did. But Byakuya couldn't wash the memory of her skin from his hands. Couldn't manage to keep himself away for too long: either he ended up at her door or, when his resolve seemed to strengthen, she would end up at his in a frustrating gust of charm.

To suffer such a lack of self-control was debilitating – and Kiyuku's growing comfort with pushing boundaries only made it much worse. Where before Byakuya had been the one to initiate and end things, at ease with the certain amount of power he possessed, Kiyuku had now taken it upon herself to start her own small fires. To enforce touches and kisses and excruciating slips of affection. She always did so with an infuriatingly subtle authority and it was by no desire that Byakuya always stopped her. Out of no chivalrous sense of respect or duty. It was only the shock of how very different it all was – how different _she _was – from those painful flashes which pierced through their veil of the moment.

_Hisana_.

_Hisana_ never used to touch him like this.

Byakuya would withdraw. He would stop their downward spiral from affection to sex – and Kiyuku would never say a word. She would only glare knowingly into nothing, slipping off or out from under him in a silent, defeated sulk. Try as he might to kiss her, to touch or hold her, she would only retreat into a busy flurry of distractions, her ego always far more wounded than his own.

It was particularly difficult for Byakuya to concentrate after such dissatisfactions, as was the case now in his training with Renji.

A crowd cheered noisily around them, having gathered as spectators to the match. Kiyuku was there – _of course _– looking on with enamored loveliness that was well near impossible to ignore. As much as Byakuya was able to maintain the upper hand against Renji – he blocked attacks with ease, not hesitating to strike in return – he could not offer the session his full attention. Kiyuku was too much of a burning persistence in his mind. An amber-headed topic to all his thoughts.

Renji blocked one of his attacks, pushing back with as much force as he could muster. A strong swipe of his sword's immensity. An effortful groan. He leaped backwards into the air to gain greater ground and swung Zabimaru in a vicious curve once again. Byakuya shunpo'ed behind the lieutenant and set his sword in a clean path towards Renji's back. Their zanpakuto collided with a metallic clang. There was an excitement in Renji's eyes as he drove himself against Byakuya, believing erroneously that he had gained the advantage.

Byakuya released his shikai, the sword dividing into its dazzling display of petal-like blades, and Renji's features dropped. Retreating backwards, only not fast enough, he disappeared amongst the wave of Senbonzakura's attack. A series of alarmed gasps sounded. Byakuya glanced to Kiyuku – she was smiling at him and his heart did an extra beat.

Then in a massive explosion of crimson, Renji called forth his Bankai. Steadying himself against the pressuring reiatsu, gripping the hilt of his sword firmly, Byakuya stared into the ferocious features of Zabimaru's final form. The head was sharply poised; a roaring hiss rose out from the boned throat; and as Renji appeared before it in an effortless drop, excited applause made its rounds across the training ground.

Of course, Byakuya had not forgotten about this. He regathered the fragments of his sword and let it descend into the ground at his feet. A calm wind blew around him, a thousand more bladed petals appearing at his command. By controlling Senbonzakura directly with his hands, he could double the speed of his attacks – Renji's slow Bankai wouldn't be able to block and the smirk would be wiped clean from the lieutenant's expression.

But Senbonzakura hesitated. Byakuya froze. A petal sliced deeply into his forearm.

_Hear my voice. _

He almost responded too late to Renji's advance. At the last moment, only just regaining a certain amount of focus, Byakuya directed his blades to the boned monstrosity, pursuing both it and Renji as they fled upwards. It took an unusual amount of strain to bombard them, a numbing amount of concentration as Byakuya felt Senbonzakura slip from his grasp. The boned snake-head burst through the wave of blades, its mouth wide and illuminated by the flames of its Baboon Bone Cannon. The only thing Byakuya could do now was dodge.

As Renji released his Bankai's ability, Byakuya gathered his blades to him in a dense wall of armour – his own Bankai.

An immense, red heat. The explosion. Everything seemed to grow dark for a handful of seconds under the powerful force. Then, just as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone with nothing but a mass of smoke left behind – which, when it began to dissipate, revealed Renji standing proudly before his captain.

"Heh! You used your Bankai!" he gloated.

But Byakuya said nothing, hardly hearing him. As Senbonzakura's metallic petals came together upon their hilt, Byakuya recalled with nauseating clarity the invasive sensation that had corrupted his attacks. _Hear my voice. _It was not a voice he knew, and he experienced a terrible realization that it likely hadn't been talking to him. _Hear my voice_.

"Taichou, is something wrong?" Renji came up to him, no longer looking smug.

Kyoraku, Ukitake and Kiyuku – _Kiyuku _– were also approaching. Byakuya sheathed his sword and said simply, "No."

"That was an impressive fight!" Kyoraku decreed upon reaching them.

To which Ukitake agreed, saying to Renji, "You've really improved."

Byakuya met Kiyuku's eye. Her smile, without losing any beauty, dimmed slightly. As the appropriate compliments and thanks were exchanged by Renji and the other two captains, Kiyuku and Byakuya stared at each other. Then he turned to leave. "That will be all for today."

As he made his way to the gates, he heard Kyoraku and Ukitake question the sudden exit; then, voice sweet and steady as a bell, he also heard Kiyuku. "I should be leaving now as well. Well done, Abarai-san. It was a good fight."

She appeared beside Byakuya outside the training grounds, looking curious and austere. Upon seeing that no one else was around, she buried her hand in his. "What happened just now?"

"When?"

"Just before the cannon. You hesitated."

It wasn't a concerned statement; more like a scolding. Though Byakuya knew Kiyuku had been having problems with her own zanpakuto, he wasn't sure he wanted to tell her about this latest development. That voice. _Hear my voice_. "You distracted me."

She raised her eyebrows, clearly not believing him. She said skeptically, "I wasn't doing anything."

"Regardless," he squeezed her hand and then let go. "Come."

They went back to his private quarters for the evening, arriving shortly after the sun had begun to set. It was cool, an autumn chill breezing about, but Byakuya felt hot and uncomfortable beneath his haori – he couldn't help but to consider the abnormal rapidity of his heart beat, the perturbed tightening in his chest. The voice continued to replay itself. An ominous monotone. A snake-like command. He tried to place it but was unable to do so, and an unsettled burn was aroused in him.

The heightened physical sense made him distressingly aware of Kiyuku's presence: her perfume, her hands as she poured herself plum wine, her stare – how simple it was to misdirect his physical agitation onto her. What an easy and desirable substitute she made for the real source of his tensions. It was exactly the sort of situation Byakuya knew they ought to have avoided, but the effect she had of dulling his distress was too euphoric to turn down.

"What are you staring at?" she questioned, handing Byakuya a glass of water.

Obviously he knew he'd been staring. He also knew there was no need for him to look away. Taking the glass from Kiyuku's hand, he allowed his fingers to graze hers and then he changed the subject, "Have you made any progress with your zanpakuto?"

She sighed, shook her head. "It's the same. Mubōna Yorokobi's voices are still too distant for me to really hear what they're saying – although it's obvious they're mocking me."

He hummed. The first time she'd spoken about her zanpakuto in the plural, Byakuya had been taken aback, though now he'd gotten used to it.

"Earlier, in the fight with Renji," Kiyuku mused, "did your zanpakuto have anything to do with why you hesitated?"

The voice. _Hear my voice_. A bile-like corrosion in his throat. An impossible obstacle, some unnamed threat. Byakuya looked intently at Kiyuku and saw her through all the strong emotions that made his chest throb. He set aside the water and, with a confused clarity of purpose, gripped her waist, hoping she might spring away. But no. Kiyuku didn't stop him when he pressed his lips to hers, nor when he pulled the haori from her shoulders and flung it to the side. She fed herself into him, letting out a deep, relieved sigh that pierced the entirety of Byakuya's body. The contact of their tongues, moist flesh on flesh, was greedy and immodest. Wrapping her legs – so perfectly muscled, lithe as tulip stems – around his waist, Byakuya carried her through his private quarters to the futon.

His own haori came off, and Kiyuku fumbled ineffectually with the rest of his robes. Byakuya angled her head against the futon, kissing the delicate mounds and crevices of her throat, feeling something of a purr rise up beneath her flesh. Bicep, forearm, wrist, fingers, he ran his hand up along her arm and then back again. To her shoulder, down onto her chest. Her spine went rigid at the touch.

Hisana never used to respond like this.

_Hisana_.

"I'm sorry."

Kiyuku shot up to sit, almost bashing Byakuya's chin with her forehead.

Beneath the loosened folds of her black robes, Byakuya could see her chest heave. Her eyes, a wide and swirling mass of blue shades, pierced through his skull. This time was not like the others. "_What_?" she hissed.

"Don't be upset," Byakuya tried to reassure her despite knowing that he was wasting both her time and his breath. "This isn't your fault."

With vicious speed and surprising power, Kiyuku gripped his face and forced his lips back onto hers. A livid, desperate kiss, trying to reignite whatever had just been extinguished. Byakuya pulled away, confronted by the nastiest stare he had seen in a long time.

"You always do this," Kiyuku said in a poisonous whisper. "Every single time."

She was going to throw a tantrum – woman rejected, child scorned. Sighing, Byakuya stood from the futon. In the erotic confusion of her robes, Kiyuku looked wildly attractive and wildly angry. "Fix your clothes," Byakuya said, assuming the role of the adult against the little girl. "I'll bring your wine."

Kiyuku launched herself from the futon in a rage. "Don't you dare speak to me like that." Her voice was penetratingly familiar – that of the noble, the powerful captain.

"I asked you not to get upset."

"Is this all because of Hisana?"

Byakuya, feeling a sudden fury of his own beginning to well up, narrowed his eyes at Kiyuku. At how ugly she made his wife's name sound: a line of incomplete iambic verse, broken up by scornful intonations.

"How can you be so stupid?" Kiyuku continued to insist, fists clenched at her sides in tiny, trembling balls. "Tell me how you could possibly be so blind."

"Calm down, Kiyuku," Byakuya warned, turning his back to her.

And then in a hateful spew, Kiyuku's next words tumbled forth. They reverberated harshly between Byakuya's temples, tore apart the most horrendous wound in his gut and spine and pride. He tried to swallow the venom, to draw an impersonal and abstract boundary around himself – but under Kiyuku's fuming gaze, the agonizing intimacy was unbearably potent. Feeling impaled, knowing full well what words had just passed her mouth, Byakuya muttered, "What did you say?"

Behind his back, he heard Kiyuku's fairy-light steps as she came towards him.

Her words were even more resolute.

Her voice even more matter-of-fact.

"Hisana never loved you."


	39. The Emergency

Chapter 39  
The Emergency

Under the weight of Byakuya's silence, Kiyuku quickly lost her nerve.

Everything had happened in such a hazy abstraction – she hadn't meant to say it, nearly hadn't realised what sounds were leaving her mouth. _Hisana never loved you_. The words hung between them with the foreboding darkness of finality. Never in her life had Kiyuku despised someone so much as she did then. It was a quiet, empty feeling, nothing like the scorching irons of hate or the full-bodied comforts of love. No. To despise was a hollow feeling, like passion gouged-out as drying fruit. And she despised Hisana, this woman she'd only met in trivial passing, this woman whom she knew to be the scum of the earth for having married above her station. For money? For comfort? For _what_? More importantly though, Kiyuku begged the question as though in conversation with the ghost herself – why, why, _why _did she have to have married Byakuya?

He turned to face her. Whether the whole world had slowed to this sluggish pace or if it was simply Byakuya himself, Kiyuku couldn't tell. Either way, she watched in horror as his heart broke for the woman he loved. The woman who she wasn't.

When the bile in her throat had settled and she'd overcome the shock of her viciousness, Kiyuku lifted her hand to reach for him. "Byakuya… I'm sorry…"

"Leave. Immediately."

His coldness shouldn't have startled her, but it did. "What?"

No answer. He left Kiyuku to fix herself – to tie the robes he himself had only just loosened, to neaten the hair he had tangled – and his absence made her sick to the very core. Without him, in the sad hush he'd left behind, Kiyuku felt watched. Watched by no other than her own bemused, judging eyes. This was exactly what she'd always expected to come of love and its cynical younger relatives: a mess. An absolute, fucking mess. She would never cry over a man, she'd always told herself. She would never be toppled or topped by anyone out of such a delusion as love.

How brittle such promises seemed now – now as she fought off the goosebumps left by Byakuya's hands, as she pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth in an attempt to push back tears.

Weakly, ashamedly, Kiyuku prepped herself to leave.

She'd told Byakuya once that it was cruel for people to expect him to love again. Mina had said it was cruel of Hisana to have married a man she didn't love. Kiyuku whimpered. Maybe, in the end, she herself was crueler than any of them – cruel for having broken promises to her younger self, cruel for wishing Hisana deader than she already was, cruel not only for wanting Byakuya to love her but also for doing everything in her power to make him. Now here she was, her cruelty having brought her the furthest thing from what she wanted.

Outside the bedroom, Kiyuku found Byakuya standing by the window. He said nothing. Didn't move. Against what must surely have been his hatred, Kiyuku felt wholly and utterly helpless. No light shone against his face, the sky having blackened outside and the moon being shrouded by heavy clouds. Kiyuku said his name, the sound of it a faint heartbeat on her tongue.

He didn't look at her, but with deliberate grace he held out his hand to reveal the Hell Butterfly perched upon his fingertips. "We've been called to an emergency meeting."

It seemed impossible. Nothing as important or as singular as this moment – this obliterating disaster of emotions – had happened to Kiyuku since the day she'd become a captain; for it to be interrupted by something so mundane as a meeting was absurd. More terribly, though, to go now would mean an end. An unfeeling dismissal. Punctuated by icy silence, a bitter taste left by the shape of Hisana's name, it would be an unbearable close to something Kiyuku could hardly imagine continuing without. _Byakuya_. Byakuya had become a central tenet to her routine and existence and life. If this was it – the climax having been reached and their downward descent begun – Kiyuku would rather have died than left the room.

But without so much as glancing in her direction, Byakuya made for the door. In his silence was the unspoken command that she was to follow.


	40. The Zanpakuto Rebellion (I)

Chapter 40  
The Zanpakuto Rebellion (I)

Sōkyoku Hill was not the place to call a meeting. It was cold in the darkness, obscure and vulnerable in the fog. Although, while Kiyuku had initially been unsure of the location, she was now more surprised by those who had gathered there: all the lieutenants – Hinamori ran to greet her upon arrival, much more concerned and curious than Kiyuku herself was – as well as a number of higher-seated officers. The third and fifth seat from the eleventh squad. Ukitake's third seats. Rukia.

The hollow feeling widened around Kiyuku's insides. Even hazed by the mist, the girl's resemblance to Hisana was glaring. More so than ever before. It would have been outrageously silly to despise Rukia – and Byakuya's fresh hate would likely only increase for it – but Kiyuku couldn't stop herself. She squinted at her through the dimness, picking out everything she could possibly dislike about the faux-Kuchiki. To do so was harder than Kiyuku would have thought.

Feeling her features crinkle in disgust, she shook herself against nothing and everything – the cold, the misery, her abandonment in the crowd of white haoris and familiar faces – and made to find Kyoraku-taichou.

"Kiyuku-chan," he greeted her warmly, placing a heavy hand against her arm. Kiyuku could have cried at the touch, feeling as though she might break. "Do you have any idea what's going on?"

She stared at him for a moment. Though it was clear that everyone was in an anxious flurry, the straightforward confusion of Kyoraku-taichou's question threw Kiyuku. If _he _didn't know what was going on, how could she be expected to? The words balled up in her throat, came out as a strained sigh. "I was going to ask you the same thing."

"My, my. This is very strange. What's with this gathering?" Kyoraku-taichou turned his attention to the two officers from the eleventh squad. "Are you here to represent your captain?"

"We weren't summoned here for that," the bald one said, his sword flung casually over his shoulder in a nonchalant display.

"Well…" the other, who wore decorative feathers that always looked very out of place to Kiyuku, added, "…our captain and vice-captain are out, so we're the only ones who can attend the meeting anyway."

Kiyuku blinked once, twice again. "Where did they go?"

"Dunno," the feathered one shrugged. "They always do this."

_And at a time like this_, Kiyuku thought disdainfully.

As under a grey sea, the fog around them thickened; cold, swirling murk which snaked itself beneath the material of her robes. There were goosebumps in her neck, a numbing ache in her legs – and the feeling only shot with greater vengeance through the rest of her body when, out of the haze, a figure began to approach the group. Slowly. Haltingly. It came ever closer.

"Sasakibe-fukutaichou," one of the lieutenants called out to it. "What's going on? Where's the Captain-Commander"

The figure paused and, in the anticipation-fueled moments that followed, the mist began to disperse.

The first squad's lieutenant stood frozen, gazing with a disturbed look of horror and warning at the rest of them. His hand was outstretched. His mouth hung open with words that refused to come. Then he collapsed. There were a number of gasps, an alerted shuffling; while some ran to Sasakibe's aid, Unohana and her lieutenant amongst them, the rest of the captains and officers grasped their swords. Something was in the air – something poisonous and stifling – a dark, unfamiliar reiatsu.

Behind the group, a chuckle echoed out from the remaining curtain of mist. "Your Captain-Commander won't be joining you."

All of them turned to face the intruder.

An ashy apparition against the night's horizon, there stood an unfamiliar man – though Kiyuku doubted if 'man' was quite the right word for it. Everything about him was angular and unwelcoming, a sickly aura emanating from the sterile whiteness of his flesh and robes. He stared at them, waiting, ready with predatory sharpness. All of them stood prepared to strike – and the intruder only smiled, a black ribbon against his lips.

Komamura, in a canine force of protectiveness, stepped before the unnamed man – creature, thing – towering above him menacingly. "Scum!" he bellowed. "What have you done to Genryuusai-dono?"

The intruder angled his head to smirk up at Komamura. No response.

"No answer?" The captain drew his sword, the calm of his movements a stark contrast to the bristling of his fur. "Then I will force it from you."

Though he swung with incredible strength, the intruder dodged him. A marvelous leap through the air. A catlike landing. Revealing the callous palm of his hand and the spiking length of his fingers, the unnamed man sent forth a strong gust of wind in warning. Kiyuku's legs trembled against it, her arm raised to her eyes. From next to her, she heard Hinamori cry out, "Taichou! We need to help!"

"No," Kiyuku insisted, not tearing her eyes from Komamura and the man. "Komamura-taichou's already handling this. Go help Isane and the others."

Resolutely, Hinamori scrambled out of the torrent's path and rushed to Sasakibe's side.

Though Kiyuku had seen Komamura's Bankai before – when released, it was rather hard to miss – she was stunned anew by its immensity and power. Rising out from the earth in a fiery glow of reiatsu, the warrior of mythical-proportions stood at attention to its master's command. "You will tell me where Genryuusai-dono is," Komamura demanded, pointing his blade with intimidating authority at the pale man.

But despite the awe-inspiring supremacy of the giant titan, the intruder appeared unruffled. He slid his hands into unseen pockets, not tearing his nonchalant gaze from Komamura.

"That attack won't hurt me."

What happened next seemed shockingly slow: a black-white play and replay of what was but absolutely shouldn't have been. Kiyuku felt a silent scream clawing through her chest. They were too late – they couldn't warn him – the sword fell too fast. From dizzying heights and with incredible weight, Tengen Myou-ou's blade plummeted downwards. Down. Ever down until its razor edge landed upon its master with force enough to shake the ground.

No one moved. An unspoken law of nature had been impossibly corrupted, the devastation of it too much to comprehend for the moment. A zanpakuto had just _murdered its master_.

Or, at least, it had tried to. When the dust settled back into its rightful place, Komamura rose out from it unharmed – and as he lifted his eyes to stare at the massive form of his Bankai, betrayal burned in his features. It was a look of utter disbelief, of indescribable sadness, that Kiyuku felt sick at the sight of.

"W-why did it…?" she muttered aloud.

Kyoraku-taichou spoke in a low croon next to her, "Impossible."

The sick smirk across the intruder's face only widened, and before all of them Tengen Myou-ou's body began to shrink and distort. It was horrific, like Kiyuku's own limbs were being twisted in a multitude of wrong directions; she couldn't bear to think what Komamura must have been suffering. What humiliation, what panic, what _loss_ – and when a new creature stood before him like a red devil, not nearly so gargantuan as before but continuing to tower above the rest of them, the captain tried to reach out for it. "Are you… Tengen…?"

With furious strength, the creature swept its sword across Komamura's body. Flames danced from its mouth. Golden fury blazed in its eyes. Before it, Komamura fell.

Instinctively, Kiyuku ripped her katana from its sheath. "Distort and diminish, Mubōna Yorokobi!"

Nothing but her heartbeat in her ears. Kyoraku-taichou's gaze fell onto her, and then onto her unresponsive sword.

Around them, in a rush of clanging metal and shimmers, she watched as the others drew their own zanpakuto as well. _Sit upon the frozen heavens. Sting all enemies to death. Howl. Growl_. Desperate, futile cries for spirits that wouldn't come. She heard her fellow Shinigami begin to plea, to shout in disbelief. The disabling horror of it made Kiyuku tremble. Like something dead. Hollow. Empty. There was no reiatsu in her sword.

"Your zanpakuto are no longer with you," the intruder explained, a crimson tear slipping from his eye. "I have freed them from you Shinigami."

Explosions went off in the Seireitei – startling red pillars of flame. The echo of an alarm. Terrible, distant screams.

"Bastard!"

"What have you done?"

"It wasn't me." The intruder swirled his hand gracefully before them, his movements serpentine and sinewy. "Your zanpakuto did it themselves."

Freed from imprisonment. Power. The man continued to speak words which Kiyuku failed to understand. She registered no sound, though his menacing laugh resounded through her skull – whatever inverted truths, whatever animal threat he flung in their direction, it was but a blur to Kiyuku, who watched with sick fascination as the stranger wiped the bloody tear from his cheek. He continued speaking, throwing out his arms in a dramatic display of thrill. Swaying. Swaggering. "Behold, the true forms of the zanpakuto you thought you owned."

Reiatsu divided and multiplied around them. Unfamiliar figures shivered into shape alongside the intruder, grinning and glaring in all directions. They were all strangely beautiful. All quite alien and animal. But Kiyuku couldn't look at them; the weight of holding her head up was too much. An invisible curtain was torn from inside of her. For a moment, she felt naked, horrified at her defenselessness before all these strangers and comrades.

_Smack_.

A slap-like blow collided with the back of her head. Not hard, but fast and surprising. Suddenly and finally aware of reality once again, Kiyuku whipped her head to the side. She first felt the wiry coolness of fingers and flesh across her cheek – then she saw them. Two faces so stunningly familiar Kiyuku almost forgot she'd never met them like this before. She said their name, felt herself choke upon the syllables like poisoned fruit. "Mubōna Yorokobi!"

…

**A/N: And so the Zanpakuto Rebellion begins! A big thank you to those of you who have been reading – I hope you will continue to enjoy. Please feel free to pop a review and let me know what you think. :)**


	41. The Zanpakuto Rebellion (II)

Chapter 41  
The Zanpakuto Rebellion (II)

It didn't take so much as a moment, but Kiyuku felt she'd known them all along. Eyes darting between the twin spirits of her zanpakuto, relishing the image to which her eye grew ever more accustomed, she flirted with the fact that they were not at all what she would have expected. Easily something like siblings, there was a striking similarity in the dewiness of their features – delicate jaws, high cheek bones, eyes blurred by lengthy lashes of black. However, in spite of these likenesses, Kiyuku was also surprised by how different the spirits were.

The first of them, whose hand had dragged itself across her cheek, was incredibly tall and lanky, something between a boy and a man. Against this masculine characteristic, however, he was femininely flamboyant, draped in a kimono of tangerine silk and florals and cranes. His bony shoulders were exposed, his neck long and carved like an ivory column. When he spoke, he did so with lips devilishly curled and in a high-pitched purr. "What's up, bitch."

At his side was the other spirit, much more demure and even smaller than Kiyuku herself. She held the boy-man's hand protectively, gazing at Kiyuku with tight-lipped loveliness. Unlike her counterpart, this little spirit was clad in metallic greys and flowers without colour – stunningly white petals, black leaves, quite extraordinary really. She blinked her big, lavender eyes once. "Hello Kiyuku-sama."

Entranced, Kiyuku couldn't speak, only watching them walk away from her in a pompous glide. She felt her mouth hanging. Both of them were barefoot. As they amalgamated into the militaristic row of other materialized figures, glancing back at her with poisonous pride as they did so, the situation's gravity seared itself into Kiyuku's consciousness. She, like Komamura before her, had been betrayed. Abandoned. At this, Kiyuku almost didn't feel Byakuya brush past her. _Almost_.

But as he stood before the strange army of zanpakuto, speaking with such firmness it made Kiyuku's bones tremble, all the day's emotions collided violently in the pit of her insides. Within the mere space of an hour, she'd lost _two _parts of herself. Mubōna Yorokobi – and _him_.

"Who on earth are you?" Byakuya demanded of the pale intruder, who looked resolute and smug amongst their zanpakuto.

"I am Muramasa," the man asserted, and Kiyuku recognised in the name a penetrating danger. "And tonight, I bring the end of Shinigami rule."

At the raise of his hand, a sword of his own was sown from the air. He grasped it possessively, thrust it down into the ground before him so that the stone fractured with a terrible rumbling like cracking bones or thunder. Kiyuku and the rest of the Shinigami could only watch as their zanpakuto ascended into the heights of the night sky, perched upon pillars seemingly rising from nothing. A wall. A long fortress from which the treacherous creatures looked down upon their masters, grinning, cackling like beasts. Muramasa continued in a resounding baritone, "Let it be known that from now on the Zanpakuto will rule over _you_, Shinigami."

There were further disbelieving protestations from their group, withering quickly into silence.

But Kyoraku-taichou spoke in return to the man named Muramasa, "Of course, I'm taking this little conversation seriously. But where is Yamajii?" He went forth towards the looming fortification and Kiyuku was starstruck by her captain's composure; though it didn't seem possible for her to admire him more than she already did, she felt an unparalleled sense of veneration. "Yamajii's the one who summoned us here," Kyoraku-taichou continued. "Now will you tell us where he is?"

"We've locked Yamamoto Genryuusai away."

Kiyuku wondered if her own astonishment was as palpable as the other captains'.

Muramasa explained with casual boldness how Kyoraku-taichou's own zanpakuto, as well as those of Ukitake and Unohana, had sealed the Captain-Commander away with their reiatsu. All the while, Kiyuku listened with growing impersonality, as though to a dream figure whose voice spewed nonsense. Impossible. Preposterous. This couldn't have been anything more than a nightmare – an outpouring of her own emotional exhaustion under the weight of the day, of having broken Byakuya's heart and her own. The pain in undescribed parts of her soul was too vivid to be imaginary, though, and when the zanpakuto sprang forth from their stone podiums with predatory aggression Kiyuku felt too drained and dazed to fight them. To fight Mubōna Yorokobi.

Still, she held her katana to the ready, launching herself in a sprint towards the zanpakuto coming her way.

The reiatsu was oppressively familiar, only with slight deviations so it was impossible to place; but whoever she belonged to, the zanpakuto was incredibly beautiful. An image of snowy white, an ice queen. When Kiyuku's sword clashed with the woman's – was it natural to think of her in such a way? – there was a tinkling shimmer like bells. Such elegance. Such grace. She blocked all Kiyuku's attacks with only a smooth curving of her own sword, staring hard with icy coldness. "Give up, Shinigami," she said through a frown, voice as pristine as her aura. And as Kiyuku drew away, the woman blew a kiss of icy wind against her.

It was then that Kiyuku realised. Rukia. This was Rukia's zanpakuto.

The irony.

Kiyuku recovered from the tumble and landed neatly against the ground, steadying quickly and assuming a defensive position – however, the woman had already lost interest in her, far away now as she delivered the same cold kiss to Matsumoto and Hinamori.

"Aramiya-san!" Ukitake yelled from behind her.

"I'm fine," she insisted. "But we're not properly prepared for this fight."

He nodded firmly, looking back as Kyoraku-taichou and Nanao appeared in an anxious flurry. "We need to retreat."

"Sounds good to me," Kyoraku-taichou agreed.

A thunderous cry deafened them. Looking up in horror, the moon was darkened by an atrocious silhouette of hybridity – gargantuan arms, a swollen gold head. There was no need to guess. _Ashisogi_ _Jizō_. At the sight of it, Kurostuchi could be heard cooing nearby, as though his Bankai weren't the most diabolical and nauseating thing in the world. "It's going to vomit poison at us," he said with excitement.

"Everyone! Run for it!"

Muramasa, as he stared down from his stone tower, only scoffed at the pandemonium beneath him. "There is no escape." And to prove his point, the snake-headed monstrosity that was Renji's Bankai slithered itself before them, jaws spread wide and engulfed by flames. Head-splitting brightness disoriented the scene, sheer and hot enough to pierce through the fibers of reality, and with a hissing roar Sōkyoku Hill was devastated – but not before the Shinigami managed to get away.

Kiyuku shunpo'ed to one of the back streets, concealing her reiatsu as she ran. To where, she didn't know. She hadn't exactly decided, though finding Byakuya was at the forefront of her mind. Desperately, she concentrated on searching for his reiatsu, knowing perfectly well she wouldn't find it but trying in vain anyway. If she cried out for him, would he find her? If she stopped running and simply hid, would he come looking? These were not captainly thoughts to have and it was only that knowledge that kept Kiyuku running.

She was alone. All around, buildings were going up in flames, smoke blacker than the night reaching up and up until it was impossible to tell which shadows were the sky and which were not. It burned in Kiyuku's chest like a miasma, set her head spinning. Worst of all were the screams of all their officers – possibly dying at the hands of their own zanpakuto. Or worse. Dying at the hands of _her _zanpakuto. Mubōna Yorokobi. She relayed the name in her mind: the name she had known since she was a child. If it was possible for them to hate her enough to desert her, it was possible for them to have loved her once. As she loved them. They were hers. Her companions, lifelong parts to her own soul – which was why it cut her so deeply, this gouged out feeling within.

"Yoo-hoo!"

Her spine juddered as she glanced backwards, just in time to see the swarm of blades. Twisting out of their path, hearing her spine click as she did so, Kiyuku halted to watch the two mismatched figures that swaggered towards her.

"Please don't run again, Kiyuku-sama."

"You'll only make this a lot less fun for everyone."

Their reiatsu. Their voices. So familiar, yet so unrecognizably hostile. Once again, it was too difficult to truly believe what was happening. Kiyuku's chest heaved. She pointed to a newly burning building, demanding of what was once her zanpakuto, "Have you been doing this?"

Pausing but a short few strides away, Mubōna Yorokobi – Mubōna _and _Yorokobi? – watched her.

"We are not interested in such unruly brutality," the girl stated, monotone and angelic.

Smirking, the boy agreed. "It's rather too messy for us."

Beautiful in very strange ways. Powerful. Menacing. As Kiyuku tried to consider what could possibly be in them of her, she distrusted the likelihood that how she saw them now – as regal predators, as lovely beasts – was what she herself was. The chance, though she tried to dismiss it from her mind, would likely haunt her into the latest nights.

With an alto laugh, the boy said, "Don't look so surprised to see us."

To which the girl added, "You should have expected this."

"Why is this happening?" Kiyuku demanded again, sounding angry though her heart was falling apart.

"Well, why don't you try…" the boy didn't finish, vanishing from Kiyuku's vision and leaving only the girl to stare with unsettling hardness; but then he reappeared, one hand on Kiyuku's waist and the other holding a well-known blade to her throat, "…to take a guess?"

She ripped her sword from its sheath and escaped his grasp, holding the katana out in a steady position to strike. Kiyuku watched the boy tilt his head, grinning at her, before she felt the girl at her back. "The answer should be obvious already."

Kiyuku shunpo'ed onto the roof above them, for the moment out of their immediate reach and able to speak clearly. "No. It's certainly not obvious – what on earth has gotten into you two?"

"Don't act dumb!" the boy shook his smooth shoulders in a mocking motion of playfulness and condescension. "It's so boring if we have to explain everything."

"She _is_ dumb." The girl glared up at Kiyuku, waiting to see what nerve the childish insult would strike – and of course it struck Kiyuku straight through the gut, though she felt she succeeded in not showing it. "This is happening because we have outgrown you, Kiyuku-sama."

"She's the lame one, if you can't already tell," the boy pointed an accusing finger at the girl. "But she's also right."

With the slinking ease of felines, the two of them leaped into the air – high above the roof upon which Kiyuku stood – and she watched in reverence as bladed fans materialized in their hands. Though Kiyuku stood with her sword at the ready, perfectly capable, she knew fighting them was going to be taxing if not near impossible. Especially if she got cut. Even once would be enough. A single shallow slice and her senses would dull drunkenly. Slightly deeper and she probably wouldn't be able to see. More than one successful strike by her zanpakuto's blades and she would be utterly at their mercy.

"You've always been strong, Kiyuku-sama," the girl said.

"But you've gotten stupid," the boy continued. "And that's made you into a weak, whiney little bitch."

Kiyuku had no time to process their words. In an elegant flourish of stunning silk and skin, Mubōna and Yorokobi flung their fans down towards her – glinting like raindrops as they spun beneath the moonlight, almost hypnotizing. She was able to defend herself, knocking the blades away with several smooth swipes of her katana, and when the last one fell she sprung into the air after her zanpakuto. The boy greeted her first with a graceful swing of the now-closed fan, colliding with her katana in an echoing clang. He struck at her with ferocious excitement, Kiyuku keeping up comfortably but nonetheless growing surprised by his speed. Out of nowhere, the girl flew at her with much more reserved agility, and Kiyuku had to defend herself doubly fast.

"I don't understand what I've done," Kiyuku said through gritted teeth. "I haven't gotten weak."

"Oh? So you mean you really _are _that dumb?" the boy teased, bombarding her with constantly renewing vigour. "You're even more of a disappointment than we thought."

He flung out his fan again, the blades separating into over a dozen spinning attacks. Kiyuku shunpo'ed herself to the opposite end of the roof. "Tell me what I need to do!"

"We're finished helping you," the girl hissed, landing without a sound.

"Not that you would have listened to us anyway," the boy nodded as he stood opposite her.

Relentless, both of them curved out their arms and released their fans. A torrent of blades. Kiyuku dodged again – but this time, there was a slight sting in her left shoulder. She glanced in the direction of the sharp, fleeting pain and was horrified to find a slit in her haori. It was make-upped by blood. Being close to her heart, the effects were quick: they started in her ears, a dull ring like ice breaking, and then spread to her eyes in a fuzzy haze. _Shit_, she thought. _Shit, shit, shit. _

The boy was suddenly close, close enough for Kiyuku to feel his breath against her face. The feeling was all wrong though. It seemed to crawl across her skin like insects, over places it shouldn't have been. "You always used to make certain promises to us. Can you remember what they were?" she heard him say, but the voice was deeper. Unfamiliar.

She swung her sword and he leaped away from her. Squinting, Kiyuku could only make them out in blurs, as though she were looking through water. But the cut had only been shallow. For now, this was probably the worst it would be – even so, however, she would have to abandon any hope of fighting with her katana.

"Kiyuku-sama," she heard the girl, her voice echoing and strange. "You always promised us you'd never fall in love."

Another spinning multitude flew towards Kiyuku, and through the blur that had become of her vision she was nearly too late in seeing them. She shunpo'ed out the way.

_Love_. It struck a chord. Made her cringe. If such an abstraction was what had driven them from her, like runaway children from their mother, perhaps it wasn't too late. Byakuya may have meant the world to her – he may have been her world – but surely it hadn't gone so far as love. Not yet. Right?

"Wait!" Kiyuku cried. The air on her tongue tasted strange. Bananas. Apple juice. Byakuya. "It's not like that."

The boy was at her ear. "Don't try deny it."

She sprung away.

The girl was in her face. "We know it as well as you do."

She swung her sword again. The insects had buried themselves in her skin – she could feel them crawling up and down in all directions. The blurs of shape and colour faded in, then out again. The ringing curled up in the middle of her head. All these things, these mix ups in sensation, they were not crippling. But they were painfully distracting. Kiyuku dropped her sword, and the two parts of her zanpakuto stood before her in a haze of colour and grey.

"You love him, Kiyuku-sama."

"You love him and you're a damn fool for it."

_Love. _She'd never wanted it in the first place.

"Bakudō Number 61," Kiyuku thrust her index and middle finger towards Mubōna Yorokobi. "Six Rod Prison of Light."

In a spark of yellow light, the kido spell slammed into each of their midsections and bound them together, immobile, trapped. Their protestations were melded into one high-pitched blur. "What? No fair, Kiyuku-chan! We were only just getting started!"

Kiyuku caught her breath, relieved.

But then, over her body in any number of places that she couldn't exactly identify – her limbs and her torso and her head all sharing a single confused bundle of nerve endings – Kiyuku realised she'd been cut open. Quite deeply, so that she saw red. And then nothing. And then orange and purple and green. The metallic smell in her nose was burning and unbearable, more like a chemical than the natural scent of blood. In slow-motion, she heard Mubōna Yorokobi laugh – the sound was so deep she couldn't tell which one of them it was – but when they spoke again it was at an almost impossible speed, only just within her grasp.

"Bankai."


	42. Sedated

Chapter 43  
Sedated

The fact that Kiyuku wasn't dead meant her zanpakuto hadn't wanted to kill her.

Shunsui acknowledged this – they'd used Bankai, stabbed her multiple times _afterwards_ but in all the right places so she wouldn't bleed out. She may not have been left for dead, but it was a miracle that Kiyuku had managed to drag herself to the fourth squad's barracks. It was only now, three days later, that she was beginning to regain consciousness.

With a sigh, Shunsui wandered towards the private wards. Casualties were the special of the day – moans like a chorus, bandaged bodies, the sterile smell of healing kido. It was nearly a game to pick out the experienced from the novices amongst the fourth squad; where the former dashed from one patient to the next, steely faced against the blood and broken flesh, the newer recruits could often be seen looking harried, frightened, freshly initiated by disaster and feeling lost without the condescension of their superiors.

None of them had known what to do with Kiyuku.

Not particularly surprised by what he'd seen but cringing nonetheless, Shunsui recalled the look in her eyes that night. Something like a feral animal, more afraid than vicious – her pupils grew and shrank impossibly fast, blinking as though she were looking straight into sunlight. She'd crashed through the passageways, falling about like a drunk and clawing at anyone that touched her. It was only just possible to hear her hissing out Unohana's name.

From experience, Shunsui knew Kiyuku's Bankai was one of fluctuating intensities. The effects faded in and out at horribly random intervals. To have gotten there, she must have waited for the lesser debilitating moments – moments when the world didn't crash in upon her with the force of every image, sound, sensation. However, hardly several steps into the barracks, Kiyuku had collapsed in a violent fit. Clutching at herself so sharply she tore her skin open and then vomiting at the amplified pain. Trembling, sickeningly white. One of the younger fourth squad members had screamed. _This _was the power of Bankai.

Unohana had to sedate Kiyuku heavily before being able to do any healing kido on her.

Her private ward was dark, wholly undecorated by the usual gifts of flowers or foods. Of course, there'd been an abundant flow of such coming in from a very distressed fifth squad – but they were all instructed to leave their get-well wishes in Kiyuku's office or private quarters. There was to be no sensory stimulation in her ward. By Unohana's discretion, none of Kiyuku's squad members had been allowed to see her either. _Especially _not if she was awake. Shunsui was the only visitor admitted.

Unhealthily drugged, still unconscious, Kiyuku was a dazed and sickly imaged of composure.

Her injuries were healing well: blood no longer leaked through the bandages and she didn't scratch at them in her sleep. Beneath her closed lids, her eyes were also still for the first time since arriving – usually they bounced about in a nightmarish flurry, or mindlessly fluttered open and closed.

Perched on her chest, resting beneath a petite and bandaged hand, was a soft toy. A pink monkey named Kenki. This was the only item Unohana had allowed into the room as a favour to Kiyuku's father.

Just hours after word had reached him, Sakudo had brought the monkey to the barracks. His wife knew what had happened. His other daughters didn't. The family elders had advised him against coming, as had Shunsui and Unohana – not only would Sakudo be placing himself in unnecessary danger, but his daughter's condition was not one a father should have to face. Nonetheless, he'd insisted and arrived soon after with the toy named Kenki. A childhood heirloom, supposedly. A gift from Kuchiki Sōjun with which Kiyuku had never parted. Sakudo had kissed his daughter's forehead, to which she'd pulled a horrified face in her sleep, and he left knowing that he'd already done what little he could.

Amazingly, the monkey did seem a remedy of sorts. Though she couldn't keep any food down and pushed the blankets off herself constantly – a bad thing, since the last autumn leaf had fallen and the seasons had officially made their change – she clutched the monkey to her chest with childlike relief and stayed in the position for hours.

Shunsui sat down next to the bed.

"My, my," he groaned softly, exhausted from the day. "You won't believe what a mess everything's in, Kiyuku-chan."

A mess indeed. A third of Seireitei had been declared a disaster zone; injured Shinigami were filing in by the hour; Yamajii was locked away, Komamura and Kiyuku were out of commission, Byakuya was missing. Shunsui sighed.

With a fairy-light moan, Kiyuku's head rolled on the pillow. Lids dragged halfway open, looking pale and drawn, she stared through a sedated glaze at nothing. "Hello?"

"Ah, I'm glad to see you're finally waking up," Shunsui smiled, speaking in almost a whisper and resisting the urge to squeeze her arm – by now the effects of her Bankai should have worn off completely, but there was no telling for sure.

Mouth hanging slightly open, head lolling again, Kiyuku gazed at the soft toy on her chest. "This monkey…" she uttered.

"That's Kenki."

"Ken-Kenki?"

"So I've been told."

"_This _is Kenki?" Trembling, weak from having vomited up all the liquidized food, Kiyuku's hands moved slowly to wrap themselves around the monkey. She stared hard at it, pulling her face back in disgusted confusion, and then thrust the toy face-down into her chest. If the sensation didn't make her writhe, the effects of the Bankai had definitely worn off – now she was simply drugged out.

"Are you feeling better, Kiyuku-chan?"

Kiyuku's brow furrowed as she stared upwards. For some silent moments she looked thoughtful, perturbed – then a sigh ghosted out from within her. "This is serious," she nodded to herself. "Very serious indeed."

Concerned she had something profound to say, something regarding their current situation, Shunsui leaned forward. "What's serious Kiyuku-chan?"

"I can't lift my head." As though to prove her point, she strained her neck dramatically without any effect. "I can't lift my head and it distresses me."

"Ah. That. Don't worry. It's only because you've been under some heavy sedation," Shunsui smiled, relieved.

"No! It's not that," Kiyuku stiffened in a comical moment of realization and horror. "It's _gravity_! The gravity is too thick in here. It's planning against me."

"Gravity, Kiyuku-chan?"

"Yes! Only we daren't speak too loud," she angled her head, not speaking too quietly herself. "It might be listening – it'll know we're on to it."

"You mean the gravity is listening to us?" Shunsui raised his eyebrows.

Horrified, Kiyuku shushed him.

"Oh!" he lowered his voice to a stage-whisper. "Sorry."

The apology seemed to satisfy her for the moment. She continued to nod her head, perhaps plotting her revenge against the 'gravity', when suddenly she slammed her arms against the bed in a theatrical flurry. "These bandages are too tight. Why on earth am I wearing them? Foul things – we ought to throw them out the window or stuff them in our shirts. Why am I wearing them?"

Before answering, Shunsui debated the question. Kiyuku was still in a delicate state; to remind her of the past days' trauma might have been problematic. However, Unohana had warned him and Ukitake of this – that Kiyuku might act strangely when she came to, and that they ought to be as frank with her as possible. As such, Shunsui responded to the question with warm objectivity, "You were attacked, Kiyuku-chan. By your zanpakuto."

Turning her attention from the bandages, she stared at him. Deadpan, steely eyed – and then she hummed sweetly. "Ah, yes, yes. I remember now. They called me dumb. It wasn't very fun," she shook her head. "Mmm-mm. Not. At. All."

"No," Shunsui nodded.

"Wait…" Kiyuku's eyes widened as she considered the bandages on her arms once again. Then she looked to Shunsui, marvelously shocked. "Did… Did they take my _arms_?"

"What? No, Kiyuku-chan. Your arms are just fine."

"Oh, right. Of course. Silly of me to think such a thing." She paused. "No. _Wait_. Am I _dead_?"

"No, no, you're just a little banged up. We're in the fourth squad's barracks now."

Glancing around the room, Kiyuku's mouth pursed into a look of snobby deliberation. "I see. It will do, I suppose. But does that mean Unohana-chan comes to visit me often?"

_Unohana-chan. _Somewhere, millions of dead men were turning in their graves. Shunsui tilted his head. "Oh, yes. All the time."

Kiyuku curled her fingers in a confused gesture for Shunsui to come closer. As he did so, she lifted her head ever so slightly, arching her eyebrows in a theatrical look of secrecy. "She's very scary, don't you think? Even so, I adore her – she's my favourite captain. An absolute queen."

"How could you say that, Kiyuku-chan?" Shunsui cried with teasing betrayal. "I thought that _I_ was your favourite captain."

"Ssh. Ssh!" Kiyuku raised her hands to her face in exasperation. "You are. My tip-top number one – but I can't say it too loud. Otherwise the gravity will tell Unohana-chan and she'll be very upset. The gravity is listening, after all."

"Oh, of course, you're a smart one."

"I know. I'm clever too. Oh! But wait. I'm the absolute worst – I forgot about Byakuya!" Kiyuku gushed. "He's actually my favourite… Oh! But I shouldn't be telling you that. Don't be upset."

Naturally, a drugged daze wouldn't be complete without romantic special-mentions. Shunsui chuckled. "Don't worry. I had a feeling that might be the case."

"Ah, I see _you're _the smart one here. You say things and they're so… smart. Good on you," Kiyuku gave him a very non-Kiyuku-like thumbs up. "But come now. We must be serious. Has Byakuya come to visit me yet?"

At this, Shunsui bit his tongue, debating once again. There was no indication that they were any closer to finding Byakuya. Frankly, at this stage, they were even considering the possibility that he was dead. But Kiyuku stared, her glazed eyes waiting upon an answer. Speaking with the same impartiality, Shunsui said softly, "Byakuya's missing, Kiyuku-chan."

"Aww! How sweet. I'm missing Byakuya-chan too!"

"No, that's not…"

"Oh, oh, oh. Wait. You mean _missing_ – like hide and seek! How dreadful. I absolutely must go find my Byakuya-chan." Forgetting the nefarious plots of gravity, Kiyuku flung herself into a sitting position, perfectly ready to leave the bed though she looked like she might topple over.

"Don't do that!" Shunsui lurched forward, thinking what terrible things would become of him if Unohana were to walk in. "You still have a lot of resting to do."

"Nonsense. I'm as fit as a fig."

"The fact that you're using idioms like that clearly shows you're not."

She glared at him, crossing her arms over her chest. "But if I don't look for Byakuya-chan, then who will?"

"There are a lot of search parties out at the moment," Shunsui reassured her. "And Kurosaki Ichigo is in Soul Society to help with the zanpakuto situation. I'm sure he'll be able to find Byakuya in no time."

"Kurosaki… Ichigo…" Kiyuku rolled her tongue around the name, continuing to glare as she did so. "The _Substitute _Shinigami?"

It was a delicate subject, Shunsui knew, but better to brace it now than when she was lucid. "That's right."

Surprisingly, she threw her arms up in the air and collapsed back onto the bed. "Wonderful! What a superbulous idea!" she squealed delightedly. "He'll distract them with his fierce hair so we can strike effectively. Whoever thought of such a plan is so very… very _smart_."

"Yes…" Shunsui ruminated. "That's exactly what he's here for."

"Will the Orange One tell me as soon as he finds my love? My Byakuya. I do miss him very much."

"Ah, well look who's awake." Unohana came into the ward, her confusingly dark and motherly energy making Shunsui stiffen.

Kiyuku, on the other hand, seemed unfazed, launching herself back into a sitting position and nearly falling over the edge of the bed as she did so. "Unohana-chan! You look pretty as a pear today! Did you know there's a lot of gravity in this room? It's very kindly keeping my head on the pillow." Excitedly, she gestured around her at all the gravity which was no longer doing a particularly good job of keeping her down. "Oh, also, did you know that you're my favourite captain?"

…

**A/N: There we have it. Just a little something light-hearted in amongst the drama. Hope it was fun to read! Leave a review to let me know what you think. :)**


	43. Byakuya's Betrayal

Chapter 43  
Byakuya's Betrayal

Despite what she'd said while coming out from sedation, Kiyuku felt an icily rational displeasure over Kurosaki Ichigo's presence. Until now she'd not seen him herself, but from the confinement of her ward, Soul Society's everyday bustle was amplified and disrupted by the knowledge that somewhere amongst it all the human boy had been doing her job.

She was recovering steadily – much quicker than most, owing to her high levels of spiritual pressure – but was still not permitted to leave the fourth squad's barracks. Let alone enter the conflict. Of course, Kiyuku was antsy and easily bored, so Unohana allowed her a certain amount of paperwork. She was even given the go-ahead to host meetings with her squad from the comfort of her hospital bed. This was the extent of it though, and incessantly there was a gnawing in Kiyuku's mind that she should've been doing more. Sheshould've been the one reporting back from fights with the zanpakuto. Sheshould've been leading missions and coordinating the action. _She _should've been the one out looking for Byakuya. _Not Kurosaki Ichigo_.

However, when Kyoraku-taichou told her earlier in the day that Kurosaki had news – that he had found Byakuya – Kiyuku was too relieved to ruminate further over the disgraces of the situation.

She sat in the fourth squad office, watching Kurosaki Ichigo with her best attempt at concealed anticipation. Too concerned with Byakuya, it didn't bother Kiyuku that she wasn't wearing her haori, or even her uniform, but instead a hospital yukata which under any other circumstances would've made her feel pathetic. She waited. Waited for the human boy to speak.

Something was off though: his hesitation, too many unsettled glances in Renji's direction. It was also odd that Byakuya wasn't in the room with them. Perhaps he'd been hurt. Perhaps he was unconscious. It would explain why Kurosaki seemed so reluctant to tell them what was going on: something terrible had happened.

And indeed, as was revealed, it was something terrible. Only it wasn't what Kiyuku had prepared herself for.

For some moments, there was a silence. Pensive, disbelieving silence. What had been a slander against Byakuya's name felt like an attack on Kiyuku herself. She didn't see and didn't care for the expressions on anyone else's face – she only glared pointedly at Kurosaki, feeling her own features contort into what must certainly have been a very ugly mask. "This better not be your sick idea of a joke, Kurosaki Ichigo," she hissed, though the words were abstract and distant from her ears.

"No. It's not," the human boy responded, looking to her insolently. "Byakuya's sided with the zanpakuto."

Renji, in a red flash of anger, seized a handful of Kurosaki's shirt. "You better watch what you say, Ichigo!"

"That's enough, Abarai-fukutaichou," Kyoraku-taichou said calmly, ever the voice of reason. Kiyuku could have slapped him. The audacity of it, that he should be _reasonable _in the face of such accusations.

"But Kyoraku-taichou!" Renji objected, releasing his grip on Kurosaki. "There's just no way Kuchiki-taichou would ever betray us."

"He must have a reason for doing this," Kiyuku insisted, glaring again at the human boy, feeling her face flush in fury as he turned away. _If it's even the truth._

"I don't know why he's doing this," Kurosaki Ichigo spoke again firmly, as though he were their equal. "But it doesn't change the fact that Byakuya is our enemy now."

A suffocating ache sliced itself through Kiyuku's heart. To hear this Substitute Shinigami speak Byakuya's name, to pair it with such a foul allegation as this – surely, it was the same kind of pain Byakuya must have felt all those nights ago. That night when Kiyuku attacked his wife's name, when she spat it out like poison or dirt from her mouth. When she declared with vengeful honesty that Hisana never loved him. She felt herself wilt over the table, practically saw her soul tear in two and crumple upon the floor. If this was the truth and Byakuya had abandoned them, what role had she herself played in it?

Renji lurched away from them and skulked towards the window. Kurosaki Ichigo sat. Finding herself staring at her fingers, Kiyuku fought back the dizzying urge to cry. It wasn't possible that it was _all _her fault, there had to be more to it than simply that, but still she admonished herself quietly. In her mind, she pictured digging her hands into the dirt – cold, wet dirt, black as blood – and lambasting herself with it, piling it upon her back and chest until she was buried deeply: in fault, in blame. She'd wounded Byakuya and this was her price to pay. It was a self-centered hypothesis, Kiyuku knew. Nonetheless, she began to tremble.


	44. Pride

Chapter 44  
Pride

"What's hedoing here!?"

"The hell is _this_ about?"

Byakuya descended upon the group, remaining composed in the face of their displeasure and bafflement. Though his head was held high, eyes staring doggedly ahead, he didn't meet any of their gazes. He didn't need to: none of these zanpakuto were of any particular importance to him. Most he didn't even recognise.

Word would have spread by now: Renji would know, Rukia too. How they would take the news, Byakuya wasn't certain, but as a rule he did not think about it. He'd expelled them from himself. It was necessary to do so, otherwise he'd likely lose his resolve. Kiyuku, on the other hand… She was a harder image to extricate. All too often over the last number of days, Byakuya would find himself disrupted by thoughts of her – involuntary, intrusive thoughts, plaguing him at the most inconvenient moments. Her redheaded pallor. Her lips. How angry and how very right she'd been without realizing it.

Perhaps she'd never forgive him for what he was doing. Byakuya hoped so. He hoped that, in the end, she would never want to see him again.

"Why did you save me?"

Senbonzakura. To the resounding echo of the others' gasps, Byakuya turned wordlessly to face his zanpakuto. Disheveled, mask crumbling about the eyes after his battle with Kurosaki Ichigo, Senbonzakura glared with steely depth at his master.

"Why did a man like you turn against the Shinigami?" he demanded further, once again eliciting exclamations and presumptions of disbelief.

"_He _turned on the Shinigami?"

"So he's on our side?"

Out of a sense of personal principle rather than any obligation, Byakuya looked back to the other zanpakuto before him. They stared expectantly as though at a dangerous animal – and all the while their leader, the creature named Muramasa, said nothing. "I am merely acting as my pride dictates," Byakuya declared to them.

The zanpakuto debated amongst themselves in hisses and titters, in rumbling voices. "Pride? Pride my ass! I don't buy it."

"We came here because we were running out of patience with the likes of you Shinigami."

"Working with you would kinda defeat the point of cutting loose."

At a superficial level, their disdain must have seemed transparent enough. Passionate, generalized for the cause – but Byakuya could tell he was merely a figurehead. The zanpakuto were not out for his blood as such, nor even that of the Shinigami in general. Not in the least, though it was easy to assume. Fundamentally, their vendettas were against their own masters, highly specific and personalized; they may have separated themselves in a physical sense but they had not severed any bonds. They had only distorted them.

As such, their attacks on him were impersonal and cold. Were it any other way, Byakuya would already have found himself halfway through a fight to the death.

Upon a smug and high-pitched tone, he was addressed. "Kuchiki Byakuya, _right_?"

It was not a question. The intonations were all wrong: sarcastic, exaggerated. Two figures came out the group towards him, curiously mismatched but a charming pair – one would have looked out of place without the other. The first's obnoxious brightness lightened the solemnity of the second, whereas the second's composed and regal beauty grounded the boisterous and vexing air of the first. Together, they pierced Byakuya with a glare of a special hatred. He recognised them immediately.

"Kuchiki Byakuya," the second, a girl with a chiming voice, said, "We would like you to prove yourself to us."

"Show us _just how serious _you are about betraying your Shinigami friends," the first agreed, crossing his sinewy arms over his chest. A smug grin spread across his lips; lips were which were just as thin and pink as his master's.

Byakuya had expected this, of course, but he was unsettled by the venom with which the pair spoke. "What would you have me do?"

The two of them exchanged a glance, drawing out their silence in order to appear thoughtful. However, it was clear that they already knew what they wanted of him. The other zanpakuto waited, watching in silence, and were stunned when the girl pointed a small finger at one of their own. "Kill Sode no Shirayuki," she said with oxymoronic calm. "This very moment. Right here."

"What the hell are you thinking?" the group demanded of them.

"Have him kill one of us!?"

"Are you insane?"

"Don't be absurd, Mubōna Yorokobi," Senbonzakura asserted.

"It's not absurd." With a sour curling in her sugar-spun features, the girl looked past Byakuya to Senbonzakura. "Supposedly, a zanpakuto won't ever return to normal if it's killed by anyone but its original owner."

With a theatrical shrug of his bare shoulders, the girl's counterpart added, "And Sode no Shirayuki once belonged to no other than dear, sweet Rukia…"

"Kuchiki Byakuya's beloved sister," the girl completed.

A collective, enlightened hum resounded around the cave.

"Ah, so that's it!"

"He'd _never_ be able to kill his own sister's zanpakuto."

"Which means…"

There rose a chorus of pleased cackles and grins as the zanpakuto summoned forth their swords in a display of bloodlust.

"So much for your supposed pride, eh, Byakuya?" the male of the pair licked his lips, revealing his own bladed fan. He and the girl looked to Byakuya like predators having cornered their prey. It was clear they were pleased with themselves, with the ultimatum they had handed him – kill or be killed. A most base law of nature, one deviously altered for their own benefit. Better still, disguised as being for the good of the group. Even if they were but a perverted reflection, they were truly Kiyuku's.

_Kiyuku_…

Byakuya inhaled deeply, unruffled by the aggression that seethed before him. "You want me to kill her?" he confirmed.

Mubōna Yorokobi deadpanned, and it was unclear whether they were displeased or simply uncertain. They offered no answer. Byakuya attacked.

Though stunned, Sode no Shirayuki was quick to react. She drew her sword, holding it before her in a defensive frame, and promptly shunpo'ed out from Byakuya's reach. She was agile, as graceful as he had always known, and for several moments they were engaged in a dance of attack and dodge, hit and miss. Byakuya would strike down against her; she would push back with equal force. All the while, the rest of the zanpakuto looked on in astonishment. It was not surprising that Sode no Shirayuki fought as Rukia would: clearheadedly, with instinctive tenacity.

However, just like her wielder once again, Sode no Shirayuki was easily flustered – too many strikes too fast and she would lose her breath, stumble in her focus. For this reason, Byakuya was able to corner her. Sword balanced sharply against hers, he pressed her to the cave walls. It was an opportune moment; he shifted his weight, slid the edge of his blade to face downwards in a line towards her chest. Sode no Shirayuki gasped, though once again she acted quickly. As though to blow a kiss, she raised her hands to her lips and barraged Byakuya with a breath of glacial wind. He retreated backwards.

She seized the opportunity in turn, lifting her sword. "First Dance: White Lotus."

A snowy column launched towards Byakuya, freezing and solidifying in magnificent white crystals. He pointed his fingers. "Bakudō Number 4: White Lightning," thus shattering the frozen entrapment.

Once again, they resumed their battle. Attack and dodge. Hit and miss. Then Sode no Shirayuki flew backwards, waving her sword and seemingly swiping at nothing. "First Dance: White Moon."

She repeated this attack once, twice again, three times, so that Byakuya was forced to leap constantly from her icy pillars as they materialized. Soon, he was cornered against the wall. Sode no Shirayuki waved her sword once more – "White Moon" – and a horizontal tower of ice surrounded him. Things went silent. The column shattered into a number of pieces and collapsed towards the watery floor below them. Sode no Shirayuki lowered her weapon, descending upon a victorious air of calm. Only too soon.

Through the shunpo techniques of the Onmitsukido, Byakuya had escaped the barrage and now stood poised behind his opponent. He pointed his fingers once again and sent forth the entrapping light of his Six Rod Light Prison, encaging Sode no Shirayuki and leaving her defenseless before him

"Make no mistake. There is nothing that I won't do…" he drew his sword, coming upon Rukia's zanpakuto and looking into the frightened blues of her eyes, "…to protect my pride."

And then – with a single swipe, before the horrified gaze of the other zanpakuto – Byakuya killed her.


	45. Him

Chapter 45  
Him

Behind closed lids, he would kiss her. He would kiss her and butterflies would spring forth from wherever he laid his lips. They'd lie in darkness for hours together, he whispering a thousand nothings that meant a thousand somethings and she falling ever deeper into him. Then she would wake up, sweating in spite of having kicked off her blankets, disappointed by the dazed emptiness. She'd curl back against the mattress, pretending to fall back asleep and praying please that she'd carry on dreaming. Not that it really mattered. Whether she was awake or asleep, she dreamed of him all the same.

There was no way of telling what time it was – certainly late, late enough to be quiet outside and for Kiyuku's thoughts to drift tirelessly back. It was always to the smell of nighttime walks, or to the feel of crumbling sand in her hands. The taste of bananas and dark chocolate. Pink blossoms. Botched calligraphy. To the hundreds of tiny ways she'd shown her soul to him in nameless acts of surrender. Even now, unhappy and alone, Kiyuku wouldn't take a single thing back. He was impossibly bound up within her like something deep-seated and exceptional; to wish him away would be to lose a full-nerved chunk of herself, to lose him would be a death in itself. Not the relieving kind of death either but rather one of purgatories and nothings.

Kiyuku clutched the edge of the blanket. She thought for a moment that she'd felt his reiatsu. Such cruel nighttime tricks.

Obscured by darkness, the unfamiliar shapes moulded themselves into silhouettes. Him – bent over, pressed into a corner, unmoving and unspeaking, such improbable positions. Yet Kiyuku, through half-sleepy eyes, managed to convince herself for the slightest moment. She wished she could find the light switch, could banish such illusions, only her limbs beneath the blanket felt too heavy and the air outside too cold. Even though the fourth squad kept their barracks heated, it was _always too cold_.

And she was hungry. In her waking hours, food held no appeal (shock, horror) but at night, she was haunted constantly by gnawing pangs. An oxymoronic nausea that begged for something solid to eat. It was in such moments that Kiyuku quietly worshipped her squad, who had showered her in flowers, handmade cards and food. Lots of food. Kiyuku pushed herself up into a sitting position and reached for what happened to be closest. Supposedly, sugar wasn't good for her recovery. Supposedly, it would slow things down. Which was likely why Unohana's lieutenant had strategically placed everything sweet – Hinamori's cookies, the sugared nuts – far out of reach. Kiyuku huffed as she dug her hand into a fruit basket on the side table.

Then she sighed, pulling out a smooth, absurd curve that could only have been a banana. Must fate conspire so to make even her nighttime snacks revolve around Byakuya?

Byakuya. Still hardly awake, Kiyuku thought she felt his reiatsu yet again.

To think of it, she wasn't really sure she wanted the banana all that much. To sit had mostly quelled the nauseous pining. The fruit felt rather too soft in her palms. She…

_Felt it again_.

Kiyuku dropped the banana and thrust the blankets from her body, leaping from the bed in a painful flurry though she hardly noticed the pain. His reiatsu was faraway, merely a distant reverberation through her bones; had she not been pining, she would likely have missed it. However, as she squinted through the window into Seireitei's moonlit streets, searching for something she knew she wasn't going to see, she knew. It was unmistakable. It was him.

She sprinted. Across the room. Through the door, startling one of the night staff. The corridors were confusing and difficult to navigate. It vaguely crossed her mind that she was in measly sleeping attire and was barefoot. As if by magic, she was also carrying her katana – she must have grabbed it from the side of the bed without thinking. Ignoring the frantic exclamations of the fourth squad members as they chased her, she bounded down stairs. Rounded corners. Burst through the door and into the night without a thought in the world toward the cold or her injuries or anything but Byakuya.


	46. Breaking

Chapter 46  
Breaking

Kiyuku clung to the traces of him like a lifeline.

There was – or at least, should have been – a lot of pain. The cold was piercing, searing her chest with icy venom, and her feet were worn ragged. One of the wounds in her side had torn open; when she touched her fingers to it, they came away with blood on their tips. None of it mattered though. She didn't feel a thing, overtaken by a daze of numbness and distraction.

She only cared about Byakuya.

Which was why, in the massive confusion of flaring and fading reiatsu, Kiyuku was frightened. There were battles happening all around her: somewhere on one of the roofs, around almost every corner. And amongst it all, her grip on Byakuya was slipping. By such bellicose onslaughts, his own reiatsu was being drowned out like a distant voice. Clutching her sword to her chest, Kiyuku halted. The breaths she drew were ragged, quivering; she was still too weak to be running like this. She might not reach him in time – in time for what? – and the thought terrified her.

What exactly she expected to come of the whole thing, she wasn't sure. If truly he had made up his mind, there was nothing she'd be able to do to change it. Perhaps though, more than anything else, she hoped to understand, that some way or another she would be able to look at him and know for sure. Without explanation. Without hesitation. She just wanted for once to be certain.

Legs aching, chest cold on fire, Kiyuku was about to start running again – only when she straightened herself, stepping one aching foot forward, she collapsed completely. Of course, this time it was by no fault of her own. Everything around her seemed to dwindle and die, pathetic structures before a new and monstrous reiatsu. _Kenpachi Zaraki_. Of all the times for him to make an appearance, it had to be _now _and it had to be like _this_: with an excessive show of his brutal power. So excessive that Kiyuku couldn't get up. She, like all the others around her, like the roofs and walls that began to crumble, was flattened by the outrageous spiritual pressure he flaunted like a beast in heat. A ruthless, stupid beast.

It was enough to knock the breath out of her, to leave her lying against the frosty ground as though passed out. Maybe she did pass out. Maybe minutes went by in seconds and she simply awoke to a continuation of the same vile bombardment – but now there was a second reiatsu. Provoked and clashing with that animal of a man.

Byakuya.

Was Byakuya fighting?

Kiyuku pressed herself up, now feeling the dizzying pain burn from her side out into her limbs.

Mubōna Yorokobi had called her weak. Told her that the things she felt had made her so. Indeed. Kiyuku knew she was only in this pathetic state because she hadn't wanted to fight her zanpakuto. If she'd fought them _for real_, without that debilitating sense of sentiment, things would have turned out differently. She wouldn't have been writhing like a child with scraped knees. She would've gotten her zanpakuto back. Now too, if only she weren't so focused on Byakuya – was he fighting; was he okay; was he, was he, _was he _– she could probably have gotten up and done something. Anything. But no, she was stuck beneath the tremendous pressure of pain and power and whatever it was she felt for him. Because she was weak. As weak as she'd promised never to be.

And naturally, it couldn't just end there.

A diabolical cry resounded through the surrounding streets. A gargantuan shadow darkened the night. When Kiyuku turned her head, she was greeted by a sight almost as appalling as Kenpachi Zaraki himself – Ashisogi Jizō, in all its horrific hybridity. Right above her, opening its fattened mouth to spew poison. Reiatsu disappeared into nothing around her as zanpakuto and Shinigami alike retreated. Byakuya did not follow suit. He was still there, reiatsu flaring and provoked. Was he stupid or already dead? Kiyuku's insides seemed to tumble over themselves nauseatingly and she wanted to scream and scream and scream.

She could smell the poison, sharp, sickly. She shunpo'ed away. A thousand more cuts tore open.

Outside of the oppressive weight of that battle zone, everything seemed quiet. Ghostly. For some moments, Kiyuku lay undisturbed with her face against grass, feeling the frost and listening to the unnatural pounding in her ears. It must've been her heartbeat, though it was much too fast and way too heavy. Her body felt sticky. She imaged the blood from her wounds freezing against her the moment it escaped.

It was hard to say how long she lay there.

Her entire body seemed to attack itself with violent shivers.

Kiyuku thought perhaps it wouldn't be so bad to sleep – just for a little while. It was so cold and she suddenly felt so heavy, like her naked limbs had been frozen to the bone.

"Kiyuku."

With jolting speed, she sat up.

Byakuya, a most perfect spectral image, stood staring at her. "You shouldn't be here."

There was nothing for her to answer with: no voice, no words. So Kiyuku simply stared back. Holding her breath, feeling her fingers tremble in the grass – only then did it register that they were in a field somewhere, somehow. She drank in his features and his shape and the sound of his voice, uncertain whether or not he was merely the figment of her pining imagination.

When she managed to stand up, Byakuya's eyes travelled the length of her frame and then back up to her face. "You're bleeding…" he said, not nearly so coldly as before.

There was a lightening on the horizon behind him and everything seemed to return into focus. Kiyuku considered the bloodied gash along Byakuya's shoulder. "So are you."

"Why are you here?"

Perhaps it was because her lips were so numb, her innards so damn frozen, that Kiyuku blurted her answer immediately and without shame. "_You_. I needed to see you."

He blinked at her, locked in a hush as he was in place, and Kiyuku's heart continued to battle itself like something of myth. Perhaps a chasm had been gouged between them. Perhaps it swallowed her voice and his and they were bound now to lengths of maddening silence. She bent to pick up her sword, a white flash of pain slicing through her eyes as she did so.

"Why are you doing this?" she insisted quietly.

As though to vanish from her sight, Byakuya turned away. "Don't interfere."

"Answer me, Byakuya!"

His name sent a scourge of pinpricks down her spine; the first time she'd said it was the first time they'd kissed. Under the cover of darkness, amongst the blooming hydrangea, they'd kissed and she'd fallen hopelessly for him. At the time it had seemed but a harmless inanity, like children lying under the same blanket. They were friends – she was not above admitting it now – sometimes venturing into blurrier territories. There was nothing so dangerous about it, she'd convinced herself, though all the while she'd been plunging her heart ever deeper into unchartered territories. Byakuya knew her. She knew him, and she'd been just about ready to become his lover without any thought to what that really meant.

From behind, there was a voice – comfortingly familiar, though Kiyuku had never heard it before – which said, "He does not owe you answers."

Then callously, with the slicing poise of a snake, a boot met her ribcage. Against the frostbitten grass, Kiyuku sputtered up blood: it coated her mouth like a liquid skin, the taste making her retch. A man behind a mask, the unnamed voice, stared down at her, as fearsome and majestic as something from feudal legend. "Leave now, woman, or you will face the consequences," the creature said, readying his foot to kick her again.

Kiyuku bulleted her index finger toward him, catching him off guard. "Bakudō Number 61: Six Rod Prison of Light."

She didn't wait to watch the masked man be trapped. Instead, rolling away from him and lurching upwards, Kiyuku locked her gaze onto Byakuya once again. The pain through her body was dull, something of an echo against the coldness of her skin. An instinctual movement more than anything else, she gripped her sword's hilt. She did not want to fight him; but with each second, with every additional ounce of adrenaline, Kiyuku realised with dismay that it might come to that.

"Stop this, Byakuya. It's not too late!" she cried. Kiyuku knew it was a lost cause, that she wouldn't possibly be able to change his mind. Apparently, though, it wasn't about to stop her from trying. "Just come back and explain."

"This is not something I'd expect someone like you to understand," Byakuya replied coldly, his back still to her.

_Someone like you_. Such callous words, as though she were nothing at all: an unnamed someone amongst a million others. Not Kiyuku. Not the girl he called by name. He spoke like he'd never held her in the nighttime silence; he'd never kissed her on the lips; he'd never seen her in a pink kimono and called her beautiful. And if those things had happened, they meant nothing. Kiyuku choked back her consternation. "Byakuya, _please_."

"Byakuya-sama!" the masked man exclaimed from his entrapment. "You must return to Muramasa immediately! Let me take care of this weakling – I will be free from her nuisance snare in but a moment."

However, Byakuya ignored him, looking to Kiyuku at last. "I will say this one last time," he insisted, eyes clouded by unknown thought. "Leave, and do not interfere with the rebellion any further."

Kiyuku held her breath, desperate not to cry. She would have reached for him, knowing full well how pathetic she'd look, had her arms not been like stone at her sides. Whether from the cold or from the overwhelming sense that she was balanced upon a most perilous knife's edge, she couldn't tell. "But I just… I can't leave without you," she whimpered loudly.

"You can and you will."

Her heart pounded like a fiend within the confines of her chest. This couldn't be it. This couldn't be how things would end. Unintended, vivid thoughts crashed down upon her – all these months, she had denied everything with naïve vehemence, but it had always been there. How very clear it was in hindsight. From that very first moment, when he'd caught her under his sakura trees, there'd been a nagging so quiet it was near invisible. Now it seemed to scream itself from every part of her body. What a fool she'd been not to have seen the truth. What a reckless, guileless fool.

"Wait!" she cried.

"Goodbye, Kiyuku."

"Byakuya…" It clawed her ribcage open so that her heart tumbled forth in hopeless suicide. Something broke. "I love you."


	47. Having No Delusions

Chapter 47  
Having No Delusions

_I love you. _

She said it and meant it, and the words felt right. As perfectly natural as birth and death: a fact as basic as life itself. Kiyuku knew now that he'd had her heart before she could even say no, and that this was how it was meant to be. She loved him. She loved him and having said so made everything clear. Still. In all its rightness, she wished she could take it back. Swallow her words. Retreat into the same hard silence as Byakuya had assumed. Under his eye, she cringed, realizing that she'd been hoping he would say it back – and worse, that he wasn't going to.

It was a harsh truth and Kiyuku simply had to accept it. Loving Hisana had been enough for Byakuya; she'd never returned that love and still, it had been enough. So much so he would never stop loving her… Perhaps Kiyuku was supposed to assume the same kind of fate.

An exaggerated, slow clapping sounded from behind her.

It pained her to look away, sent her spirit spiraling to know that this was how the moment – this singular, vital moment – ended. Nonetheless, she turned from Byakuya, drawing in a stuttering breath. Mubōna and Yorokobi stood alongside the masked man, assumedly having helped free him from the kidō entrapment, watching Kiyuku with contradictory glimmers upon their features.

The boy of the two continued to clap his hands mockingly. "Well, damn Kiyuku-chan. I didn't think you'd ever actually grow a pair and say it."

"I am unsurprised," the girl stated in turn.

They were beautiful. They'd been hers once. They'd tortured her like psychopathic children. Kiyuku narrowed her eyes at the pair and their masked comrade, drawing her sword from its sheath. Most of her heart was still dead set on Byakuya; however, there were free pieces enough to ache at the thought of fighting her zanpakuto again, at knowing it would have to be for real this time. Kiyuku's heart was already cracked enough to be close to broken though – might as well take it all the way.

The masked man disappeared and reappeared behind her, next to Byakuya. "Mubōna Yorokobi will take care of this woman. Byakuya-sama, we must return to Muramasa."

A strong, throaty hum. Kiyuku looked back to meet Byakuya's unbearable gaze once more. They said nothing but Kiyuku felt in her expression a desperate, final plea. Byakuya ignored it. He closed his eyes against her in a typical show of indifference and nodded to the masked man. He was going to disappear. He was going to escape and she would've allowed it. She would've failed in her duty as a Shinigami, simply because she'd figured out that she loved him.

Kiyuku sighed with an impending feeling of despair. _Might as well break her heart all the way_.

Before Byakuya and the masked man could make their move, she shunpo'ed between them. With deliberate force, rejecting the agonizing ache in all her limbs, she swung her sword. Byakuya drew his own and held it out against hers, glaring at Kiyuku so that she felt a metallic quake through her bones.

"Kuchiki Byakuya," she said with as much steadiness she could muster, gazing fixedly at him. "By order of the Gotei 13, you are under arrest as a co-conspirator in the Zanpakuto Rebellion."

The masked man just about growled, ready to attack in turn. However, unfazed by Kiyuku's position, Byakuya held out a stopping hand to him. "Leave this to me, Senbonzakura."

"But Byakuya-sama!"

"You heard the man." Mubōna and Yorokobi appeared alongside Senbonzakura, the boy of the pair leaning against him in a cheeky show of familiarity. "Don't be such a spoil sport."

"You two know Muramasa's orders," Senbonzakura objected with dutiful passion.

But the girl silenced him. "We didn't materialize to take orders."

Kiyuku's eyes flickered from Byakuya to her zanpakuto. They wanted to fight her, so much was obvious; but more than that, for the time being, they had assumed the position of curious onlookers. Tilting their heads at her. Pursing their thin, dark lips. The similarities between their mannerisms and her own were palpable. Kiyuku looked away, back to Byakuya.

Even without her injuries, he was much stronger than her physically. The fact that his sword hadn't already embedded itself in her head was miraculous.

"You cannot fight me in your condition," Byakuya declared.

As he had ignored her before, now it was Kiyuku's turn to ignore him. She slid her sword away from his and struck again. And again, and again, pushing against Byakuya with shattering intention. Indeed, he may have been stronger, but she was just as fast – assumedly even faster, owing to her size. Kiyuku stepped behind him and ducked low, curving her sword in a straight path towards his legs. It was very nearly too late when he realised and Kiyuku managed to inflict a deep cut into his calf, though she'd been aiming for the backs of his ankles.

Hakama torn by the edge of her blade, blood running down into his sandal, Byakuya leaped backwards and held out his fingers towards her. "Bakudō Number 1: Restra…"

He didn't finish. Kiyuku was behind him again. "Bakudō Number 61: Six Rod Light Prison."

A mass of yellow light. Byakuya shunpo'ed out of the rods' paths and to the opposite end of the field. Kiyuku followed suit; their blades met again immediately.

"Stop this," Byakuya insisted, forcing Kiyuku's blade low. "You're already too weak."

"I am not weak!" With speed enough to make her chest heave, Kiyuku dropped her sword and thrust her index finger out in an accusing point. "Hadō Number 4: White Lightning."

The kidō spell was draining. In the pale light of the bolt, Kiyuku felt her spine go rigged and her neck twinge. She didn't use enough spiritual energy for the attack to have been fatal, only disabling, and they'd been close enough together that she couldn't have missed. It had been too fast for Byakuya to have dodged. But of course, he managed somehow. Seizing her wrist from behind, Byakuya spun Kiyuku around and held her under his steely glare. His grip was harsh, hard enough to break her bones if he really wanted to – Kiyuku tried to pull herself free and failed.

Callously, he jerked her arm. A horrendous pain shot through her shoulder and she had to bite her tongue against a swelling screech. Through the white flash of agony, she didn't notice herself being thrust to the ground and onto her back like a common stray.

Byakuya stood over her, tremendous and intimidating. "This fight is over. Leave now and stay out of the rebellion."

Then he was gone. Before Kiyuku could make another move to fight, before she could even look up into his face, he vanished completely. Senbonzakura was nowhere to be seen either – there were only Mubōna and Yorokobi, who had watched the scene unfold and now leaned over her with those twin looks of poise and mirth.

"Ooh, that Byakuya is a nasty boy," the boy smirked. "Confess your love to him and then he dumps you like yesterday's news."

"He didn't even have the decency to fight your properly," the girl scoffed. "Most disappointing."

They were right, of course. Kiyuku was clearheaded enough to know it, as though telling Byakuya she loved him had lifted a fog from her mind. No delusions, no uncertainties. Byakuya didn't love her back; Mubōna and Yorokobi wouldn't hesitate to kill her on the spot if she didn't act quickly. Hand snaking around the handle of her sword, Kiyuku swung it over her in a broad arch. Mubōna and Yorokobi jumped – leaped – floated – out of her reach, kimonos fluttering about their sinewy limbs like butterfly wings. Kiyuku sprang back onto her feet.

The sun was starting to rear its head over the horizon, a white-yellow without warmth. All the hours and the accompanying overexertion weighed ever more insistently on Kiyuku's body. Her head spun, vision dotted by fading and falling spots. She'd set back her recovery by an excruciating number of days. Perhaps it wouldn't matter. Perhaps she was too weak now to survive against her zanpakuto.

"Don't look so angry. _You_ should have known better," the boy shrugged his ivory-smooth shoulders.

"We did try to tell you, Kiyuku-sama," the girl frowned. "But you wouldn't listen."

Indeed, they'd tried to warn her off. Theirs were the nagging voices in her head, the sneaking guilt in Kiyuku's gut. They'd known before she had – naturally: they were her soul after all – and had tried to stop the whole thing from spiraling into a mess. In hindsight, it probably wouldn't have helped even if she had listened to them. Loving Byakuya felt as much a part of her fate as being the youngest daughter of the Aramiya family or becoming a captain. Irrevocable, unpreventable. Nothing they could have said would have changed things.

Sword poised, Kiyuku shunpo'ed close enough to Mubōna and Yorokobi to see the purple hues of their eyes.

"You both talk way too much." She struck at each of them.

Though it was clear they hadn't expected her to attack so soon, they were quick enough to dodge. The boy looked with dismay at a slice in his elaborate sleeve; the girl touched her fingers to a missing clump of black hair.

"I'll admit it. I let myself slip. It was foolish." Kiyuku sliced her blade through the air, eyes moving between the two spirits. "But that's not reason enough for you to have betrayed me. Frankly, I think it's a rather shallow façade. You left for a much bigger reason – and that's this. Everything you say, everything you do: it's all merely an extension of my own soul. There isn't a thing about you that could exist without it existing in me first, and it must burn you both to know that. To know that without me, you're nothing. I think that's why you left. _To prove a point_. Am I right?"

Neither of them said anything, only staring at her with features rapidly contorting into irritation, perhaps even anger.

Kiyuku surprised herself. Indeed, she knew she wasn't weak. Maybe reckless, but not weak, and Mubōna Yorokobi's accusations of such were simply masks for their truth. Kiyuku herself had a tendency to deny things outright, things that revealed her own faults rather than those of others – and so she didn't blame her zanpakuto for grasping at excuses to shield their insecurities. Once again, they were only doing what she herself would have done.

The boy huffed, twisting his head to the side in a revolted gesture. "You've always gotta be such a bitch about things."

"We left you because you're weak. That is all," the girl spat, raising her hand to grasp a materializing fan.

Truth or not, Kiyuku had shaken them. Truth or not, that had been her intention.

Once again, she shunpo'ed towards them and attacked, swinging her sword to be met by their closed fans. They fought as though they were dancing: with theatrical grace, with accomplished technique. Kiyuku recognised in both Mubōna and Yorokobi her own practiced fighting style as well as habits she'd battled to eliminate. A tendency to embellish. An emphasis on speed rather than force. Like hummingbirds striking a flower. With their fluttering kimonos and barefooted sashays, it must have been something quite lovely to watch them fight.

From Kiyuku's reach the girl sprang back, releasing her fan with a dainty flick of the wrist.

Over a dozen blades, glinting in the rising sun but otherwise near invisible. Kiyuku managed to knock each of them away with her sword, though her shoulders strained to maintain the necessary speed. It was no different when the boy flung his fan from behind her – she spun and struck, dodged and shunpo'ed close to him, managing to slice the material at his thigh.

"Stop it!" he demanded in a temper, leaping away once again. "This kimono is probably worth more than you are!"

In spite of herself, Kiyuku smirked. It was a stunning kimono.

While the boy fussed about the slits, Kiyuku flattened her palm and held it out toward him. "Hadō Number 33: Blue Fire, Crash Down."

He looked up in dramatic alarm at the pale blast and jumped without much grace from its path. He glared up at Kiyuku, but she turned away too quickly to notice – in the meantime, the girl had come close to her, gripping a single blade in her tiny fist. She swung it at Kiyuku, once then twice again, only managing to slice off thin strands of hair. Perhaps it was personal vengeance for the silky clump of her own that she was missing.

The fight continued in this way. It was not long but it was exhausting, a constant show of speed, a constant effort to dodge Mubōna Yorokobi's blades. As tired as Kiyuku was – her chest felt just about ready to implode – the adrenaline pressed her onwards. Until then she'd purposefully kept her spiritual pressure low, fighting on nothing but brute force, but now she considered the need for release. Mubōna and Yorokobi were getting frustrated; they hadn't managed yet to hit her even once and the exasperation was making them aggressive. They came at her with unwieldy force. They flew at her like birds of prey. It was only a matter of time before they struck successfully.

Kiyuku shunpo'ed far out from their reach, bending at the waist and heaving stuttering breaths. The wound in her side was still bleeding. The flesh where Senbonzakura had kicked her was tender and probably bruised. For being in such poor shape, Kiyuku figured she was doing alright.

Mubōna and Yorokobi stared at her, both looking thoroughly displeased.

"You look like shit, Kiyuku-chan," the boy commented, eying out the blood from Kiyuku's old wounds.

"You won't be able to dodge us for much longer," the girl hissed in turn. "Your time is running out."

Saying nothing, Kiyuku only stared back at them. Apparently the silence was most upsetting.

"Don't just stand there! Say something!" the boy insisted, a child on the brink of a temper tantrum.

"Give it up." A bladed fan materialized in the girl's hand once again. She flicked it open with malicious venom. "We're finished with you, Kiyuku-sama. You were right about what you said. We hated being subject to you, in all your maudlin feebleness. But now we are free, and in your death you will know that we _don't _need you."

The boy, looking frazzled, smirked in agreement. "We'll have some fun with Byakuya-kun for you when this is all over." He opened up his own fan.

And in vicious splendor, they bombarded her with an unending swarm of blades. Slice after slice. Cut after cut. Mubōna and Yorokobi watched with animal hatred in their eyes as Kiyuku did nothing to stop their attacks – obviously too weak, too wounded, to fight anymore.

But to her zanpakuto's horror, she faded from their sight unharmed. An illusion, an afterimage, the real Kiyuku having moved behind them with the Way of Onmitsu, 3rd of the Shihō. The Molted Cicada. One of the most advanced techniques she knew. Kiyuku held her sword poised, pointed her free fingers forth; then she fell towards her two zanpakuto silently and quickly so that they realised the deception too late.

And she struck them both. Stabbed the boy through the chest, shot a violent bolt of kidō through the girl's stomach.

Mubōna and Yorokobi looked at her in disbelief.

"I'm sorry," Kiyuku uttered, clinging to her sword, finally overcome. "I know how you must have hated it, feeling as you did. If I were you, I probably would have done the same." She lifted her head, smiling at each of them. Exhausted, sweating in spite of the cold, tears slid from the corners of her eyes. "But I need you just as much as you need me. Without you, I'm also nothing – so please, let's end this."

"Kiyuku…sama…" the girl muttered, sounding on the edge of tears herself.

The boy, blade still centered through his chest, touched Kiyuku's hand.

They vanished, falling to the grass in gentle, metallic clatters. No longer a beautiful pairing of beautiful creatures, but blades once again. Kiyuku dropped onto her knees and fell forward into the grass with them. Her throat scraped at itself with each breath she drew, her limbs convulsing in numb excitement. It was over. She'd killed Mubōna and Yorokobi, and she wasn't so sure it had worked. Through a haze, she stared at the glinting fans before her – quiet, expressionless things. Hers once more. She slid her fingers over them and felt a pulse of reiatsu. It _was _over.

A blackness began to wash over her. Her heartbeats were excruciating in her ears. Everything sticky with blood and sweat and detached tears that wouldn't stop. Kiyuku wanted to die. Gripping her zanpakuto was a strain but it was a final comfort. She pulled them into her, clutched them to her chest as a child would a soft toy. Hers again. At least _they _were hers again.

Her limbs disconnected themselves from her body, her head seeming to loll about her neck. Kiyuku closed her eyes and held her breath for as long as she could. It hurt to breathe. The adrenaline was gone and she was exhausted and she'd sapped herself of any spiritual pressure that might've kept her standing. There was no voice left in her throat, no warmth in her blood. Kiyuku thought about Byakuya – she loved him; she loved his voice, his kisses, his principles; she loved the way he'd brought her heart to life in ways she could never have imagined; she loved him even though he'd left her like this and would never love her back. She loved him.

Kiyuku couldn't say how long she lay there for but after however many seconds or minutes or hours, the sun was up and she could feel herself being lifted off the ground, legs flopping about while her arms held Mubōna and Yorokobi to her chest. It was warm where she was, smelling of wood and sake.

"Good job, Kiyuku-chan," she heard a voice say, comfortingly husky and familiar.

_Good job?_ she thought. _Yes, Kiyuku-sama. Good job. _


	48. The Butterflies

Chapter 48  
The Butterflies

Weightless nothing. The feeling was gone from his body and he continued to fall. No. Not fall. There was nowhere to fall to – he was floating. Black water. Dark space. Nothing. Nothing but him and the flowers dropping. Dropping in a cascade of iridescent softness, of forbidding and forbidden loveliness.

Petals slipped from his skin. He couldn't cover his nakedness. And still the paper butterflies burned around him, touching their lips to honeyed pollen and then swelling into flames. They fluttered past his ears, whispering backwards words, upside down syllables. _I can't hear you. I can't hear you. _Then they would land upon him: his lids, his lips, his chest, stomach, legs. Out and up into a saffron burning. Down into dirtying ash against his skin. Below his skin. All through his veins.

_Why won't they stop?_

He looked for her. For who? _Her_. He'd forgotten.

He parted his lips, tried to call her name – but roots were coiled through his throat. They strangled, stifled. He clawed at them; smacked at their suffocating tightness; buried his fingers into their wooded twists. There was water on his fingertips. It fed the roots. He drew his hand away in horror.

But droplets continued to bud beneath his nails. Ran down to his palm like pearls. Seeped through his pores and rushed beneath his flesh, smoother than blood.

Then they fell from his eyes. Saline. Warm. They fell from the corners of his eyes and along his cheek like doomed rivers. Tears. Wouldn't stop.

_Why won't they stop?_

The butterflies swarmed above him, paper wings but blurs of pallor. He couldn't tell them to stay away. Not to come closer. They came closer. He couldn't stop them and felt his heart batter against the walls of his ribcage. One of the butterflies landed, then two, then five. Their wings began to blush – he waited for them to shatter, to smolder, to tear themselves within the flames. He waited. Waited. He waited and watched their white wings change from papery whiteness to pink to red.

From his tears, they were drinking. The water flowed down his body and they kissed it with their little butterfly faces.

Gently.

Slowly.

They drank and he didn't understand.

More came down upon his skin, leaving a thousand pinpricks in the wake of their tickling footsteps. A dazzling sunrise of colour: white, to rose, to crimson or gold or amber. And once they'd had their fill, they danced up into the nothing like petals themselves. Cherry blossoms. Camelia and lilies. Orchids – glorious, shimmering orchids. Away from him and then back again.

Afraid. He was afraid and ashamed of the nakedness against which they fluttered. Still more tears flowed forth from his eyes. Still more paper butterflies came and coloured and went. Glittering above him. Floating back down into him. Into him_. _They embedded themselves with silken tenderness; quivered upon the sinews and bone; whispered through his veins their knotted poetry.

Straining his ears, body growing heavy and full, Byakuya tried hard to listen.

Slurs. A foreign language. _I love you_, they said.

_I love you_.


	49. Bittersweet

Chapter 49  
Bittersweet

Kiyuku woke, slightly bleary and desperate for something to drink. It wasn't immediately clear where she was – a room hued by oranges, sunset spilling in through the window; the smell of flowers and healing kidō. Blankets were stretched out on top of her. Bandages held fast to her limbs. The fourth squad's barracks. Her ward. Stiff against the bed, Kiyuku brought to mind the last thing she could remember. There'd been a lot of pain. The cold. Muffled words and flashing images like glinting metal. She'd beaten Mubōna and Yorokobi. _That _she remembered. When she'd ended up here though, and how…

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed an ominous form, something of a shadow that shifted and murmured uncertainly.

Still groggy but aware enough and ready, Kiyuku shot up to sit. She demanded of the apparition, "Who's there?"

She only managed to notice the gawking, lavender eyes before collapsing back into the bed with a gasp. Flames shot through her ribcage, pummeled the breath from her lungs. It was a sharp crashing. An icy slicing through her vision, potent but not long-lasting. Kiyuku stiffened in fright, halting the most miniscule of movements – not even venturing to breathe – until the pain subsided.

"Kiyuku-sama!"

"Don't move so suddenly, you dumbass."

With only the slightest twist of her head, Kiyuku squinted through half-shut eyes at the voices. Mubōna and Yorokobi, spread atop the room's couches and looking as though they too had just woken up, watched her serenely. Kiyuku blinked. She remembered them turning back into blades. She'd… done what she'd needed to. It must have been a dream that they were here with her now, in these forms.

"You…" she croaked, not entirely certain what to say next.

The girl jumped from the couch and scurried to Kiyuku's side. Her walk was a bop, the silky bun of hair bouncing atop her head. Up close, she looked very much like a fairy and smelled of fruit. Kiyuku stared, feeling perhaps that her mouth hung open. Not that it mattered; this was only a dream, after all.

"Kiyuku-sama, please rest and recover quickly," the girl squeaked in a sweet, chime-like voice: a stark contrast to the deadpan abhorrence of before.

"Uh. Sure," Kiyuku droned. "Right."

The boy came up close as well, hands held to his narrow hips vivaciously. The girl looked like a fairy and he looked like an elf, all sharp featured with a glisten of mischievousness about his eyes. He pouted at Kiyuku, concerned but too proud to admit it. "It's about time you woke up. We've been cooped up in here for hours now."

Eyes dropping to gaze at his chest – boney and perfectly white beneath the kimono, no wound to commemorate how she had stabbed him – Kiyuku said nothing in response. She pressed herself back up to a sitting position, much more slowly this time, and with dreamlike confidence put her palm against his chest. There was no blade-sized hole beneath the material. Not even so much as a scratch or a bruise. Certainly, this had to be a dream.

Mubōna and Yorokobi stared at her.

"Umm…" The boy wrapped his hand around Kiyuku's wrist, pushing it away slowly and tenderly. "I know it might be hard for you to keep your hands off me, but please don't touch the merchandise."

Again, Kiyuku didn't reply. She considered the solidness of his palm, the clear intonations of their voices. It did all seem rather too real to be a dream, lacking in the nonsensical and confused. "You're not really here, right?" she questioned after some moments, doubting herself.

"What do you mean, Kiyuku-sama?" The girl touched a teeny hand to Kiyuku's forehead. "Are you feverish, Kiyuku-sama?"

"No. I'm fine. But you – I'm dreaming, aren't I? You both turned back into blades," Kiyuku said with a frown. "You shouldn't be here. At least, not like _this_."

"What? You didn't expect us to stay like _that_, did you? Do you have any idea how boringit is?" the boy waved his hand, dismissing the suggestion as though it were the most absurd thing in the world.

"We can materialize whenever we want," the girl explained.

"I see."

A loaded silence. As long as they didn't have a taste for killing her anymore, Kiyuku didn't mind this new development so much. Of course, it was rather odd: being situated beneath the gaze of two strangers with whom she was so intimately familiar; imagining she would know most things about them and yet feeling she knew nothing at all. In the darkening light of the room, Kiyuku allowed herself to stare; it was rude and not particularly aristocratic of her, but she did it anyway.

About the girl, there was an air of pristine orderliness. She sat up straight, wore her face in a symmetrical mask of composure. Save for the eyes, which seemed to change in subtle shadings from lavender to lilac to heather, she was perfectly monochromatic: milky skin, kimono of stormy glooms, an immaculate white orchid in her hair. Lovely and soft, like a doll – she stared back at Kiyuku with childlike tenderness.

The boy, on the other hand, was somewhat harder to place. He was a stylized mess of bursting colour, kimono draped loosely around his sinewy form as though for lounging about. A thousand expressions crossed his features in a matter of moments, all of them theatrical and over-zealous. A drama queen. An effeminate bundle of passion and charm. For all the disarray of his hair and emotions though, despite the lax curve that his posture formed, he was quite stunning.

Kiyuku adored them both.

Against the prevailing hush, the girl lowered her head to look gravely at Kiyuku. "Kiyuku-sama," she said, "Please accept our humblest apologies for what we've done."

"You weren't yourselves," Kiyuku reassured, placing a hand over the girl's. Though she knew full well what they'd done to her specifically, she hoped they hadn't done more besides. It was likely a hopeless hope; if the other zanpakuto were capable of committing such ferocious atrocities, nothing set Mubōna and Yorokobi apart. Everyone thought their own zanpakuto was special – Kiyuku could probably convince herself of the same thing quite easily – but in the end, they were all fallible creatures, Shinigami and zanpakuto alike.

Glowering, the boy crossed his arms loosely and looked away. "That Muramasa is a real piece of work," he grumbled.

A thought struck Kiyuku. _Byakuya_. They would know where Byakuya was. Him and the other zanpakuto, of course. Maybe they'd be also be able to tell her why he was doing this, why he had betrayed her… and the rest of the Shinigami.

"You need to tell me where Muramasa and the others are," she insisted, eliciting anxious frowns from Mubōna and Yorokobi.

"We're very sorry, Kiyuku-sama."

"We can't remember."

They couldn't remember. Kiyuku's heart sank and she said nothing in return.

In her place, a new voice interjected from the doorway, "Oh dear. That's rather unfortunate, isn't it?"

Turning their heads to the source of the voice, Kiyuku and her zanpakuto were greeted by the sight of Kyoraku-taichou and Ukitake. The pair looked exhausted, slightly hunched and a little more wrinkled than usual – still, they smiled widely, carrying in a large bunch of yellow flowers.

"For _me_~?" the boy chirped, sounding rather too familiar. "Why, you shouldn't have."

Kiyuku shot him a look, but Kyoraku-taichou only laughed. "Not this time, my friend."

"How are you feeling, Aramiya-taichou?" Ukitake placed the flowers down on the side table.

"Very well, thank you."

Kyoraku-taichou eyed her with paternal skepticism. Both he and Ukitake probably knew she was anything but well. To think of it, she likely looked more of a mess than she felt – and she already felt horrendous. Tired and crushed, uncomfortably unsure about whether she was hot or cold, morbidly thirsty.

"You had a rather nasty case of hypothermia when we brought you back here – not surprising, since you were running about barefoot and with little more than a sheet for clothing. All your wounds split open as well. How you managed to fight these two, we still haven't figured it out," Kyoraku-taichou gestured to Mubōna and Yorokobi with half a grin.

"Kiyuku-sama is just better than most," the girl stated with a shrug, as though to say this was absolutely common knowledge.

Kiyuku shushed her, feeling her face grow red. Maybe her zanpakuto were a little more insolent than she would have liked.

Kyoraku-taichou hummed smilingly. "Yes. Perhaps."

Pulling up seats for themselves, Ukitake and Kyoraku-taichou sat alongside Kiyuku's bed. Both of them grunted and groaned comically as they did so, and it was hard to say whether or not they were exaggerating.

"So, getting straight to business," Ukitake declared, looking between Mubōna and Yorokobi with the stern warmth of an old school teacher, "Is there anything at all you two can tell us about the rebellion?"

"What do you want to know?" the boy questioned in turn, spreading himself lavishly across the couch once again. A long and slender leg appeared out from the folds of his kimono, carved to faultlessness and lithe as a tulip stem. Kiyuku gaped in alarm as he flung it without any regard for respectability across the armrest.

Neither Kyoraku-taichou nor Ukitake seemed to notice.

"Perhaps you could start with this Muramasa character," Kyoraku-taichou prompted.

Both Mubōna and Yorokobi alternated in relating whatever information they could, though it wasn't much. They explained what they understood about Muramasa's peculiar abilities – appealing to the basest desires of other zanpakuto and calling said desires into a foregrounded position of consciousness – and why he had incited such rebellion – which ended up adding little more to what Kiyuku and the others already knew.

Biting the inside of her cheek, Kiyuku battled in keeping her thoughts to herself. She needed to know about Byakuya, needed to hear his name and anything else it might imply. Even if it contributed nothing at all to the situation, or if it was the most diabolical thing Kiyuku would ever hear, she needed to know.

Chewing her words, she questioned with careful slowness, "What about Byakuya?"

"It's about damn time you asked about him!" the boy asserted with excitement shockingly contradictory to what Kiyuku herself was feeling. "That man's a bitch with some serious expectations."

"And a most unflattering superiority-complex," the girl agreed.

At this, Kiyuku adored them both a lot less. "But why's he doing this?" she insisted. "Surely he said something."

"Something about his pride. It was always his pride-this and pride-that."

"He wasn't very clear otherwise."

"Quite frankly, Kiyuku-chan, he may be a god on the eyes, but other than that I don't see what you see in him," the boy shook his head in over-the-top dismay.

Face exploding in a map of shameful warmth, Kiyuku's voice vanished from its place in her throat. No words and an outrageous pulse. If she could have moved without being crippled by such hellish pain, she would have stabbed the boy all over again right where he sat.

As for Byakuya, she'd seen his soul just as much as he'd seen hers. There was no explaining it, her heart just knew – she didn't belong to herself anymore and try as she might, she would never be able to take that back. She'd seen the poetry in his words; she'd seen the pain in the slightest upturn of his lips. _She saw everything and more in him_, Kiyuku wanted to say. She saw everything in him and it was terribly bittersweet.


	50. The People We Love

Chapter 50  
The People We Love

"We shouldn't be doing this, Ichigo. Ukitake-taichou already said she doesn't know anything."

"I know what he said, but there's got to be more to it than that," Ichigo insisted as he marched passed a series of private wards. "Byakuya must have told her something."

The thought of Nii-sama weighed itself against Rukia with a vengeance. Twice now, Ichigo had fought him without any results; her and Renji's encounter with him two nights ago hadn't been any different. She sighed. Ichigo was right, of course – out of everyone, Aramiya-taichou was probably the only person who'd know anything. Anything at all. Yes, Ukitake-taichou had indicated otherwise, but maybe Aramiya-taichou was protecting Nii-sama. Maybe there was a reason she'd managed to defeat her zanpakuto the other night but not him.

In all the months that had passed, Nii-sama had never said anything to Rukia about his relationship with Aramiya-taichou. He was always as stolid as ever, reserved and business-like – but she'd noticed the difference. There'd been a charmed lightening about him, as though Aramiya-taichou were the spring coaxing a new bud out from its cocoon.

Some nights, when Rukia was at the manor and Aramiya-taichou happened to come by for dinner, it was possible to hear her and Nii-sama whispering until late into the evening. Like conspirators. Or naughty teenagers. There was one particular evening in more recent weeks when Rukia's curiosity had gotten the best of her and she'd peeked through the shoji at them: next to each other on the terrace, silhouettes against the moonlight – Nii-sama's fingers were running themselves along Aramiya-taichou's cheek and he seemed to look at her as though she were the softest, most beautiful thing in the world.

It had been strange and wonderful, and Rukia couldn't deny the slightest pang of familial jealousy. Until then, she hadn't been sure how she was supposed to feel about the whole thing. She didn't mind it really, but maybe she was supposed to – perhaps out of some sense of loyalty to her sister, she should have been shocked or angry.

But after having seen them that night, close enough to kiss and enveloped by a secret, smiling intimacy, Rukia couldn't possibly feel anything but delight.

They'd looked like they loved each other.

Considering which, it did seem impossible that Aramiya-taichou wouldn't know anything about the current catastrophe.

Rukia and Ichigo reached her ward. It was the middle of the day; she shouldn't have been sleeping. Still, both of them hesitated to enter.

Apart from that night with Nii-sama, there was always a sort of wall around Aramiya-taichou. It was difficult to get to know her beyond the levels of professionalism and formalities – Hinamori had even mentioned once how her captain seemed to have no real interest in close relationships. Rukia wasn't intimated, of course, but she did find Aramiya-taichou's presence a little disconcerting. On top of that, it was fairly common knowledge that she couldn't stand Ichigo. That the two of them should be alone with her now, a bunch of strangers on tenuous ground, was rather unnerving.

"Well, go ahead," Ichigo gestured for Rukia to open the door. "Ladies first."

She scowled at him but nonetheless placed her hand on the doorknob, twisting it slowly.

Aramiya-taichou was up straight in her bed, paper work and folders spread out across the sheets with more still piled upon the bedside table. She looked up, considering Rukia and Ichigo with wide-eyed curiosity, saying nothing. Without her captain's haori, Aramiya-taichou seemed tiny and vulnerable, the bandages and flimsy yukata only adding to that impression. There was a bruise around her eye like a swirling, purple cloud; her hands seemed to tremble over the folder in her lap. Rukia swallowed against nothing.

"Aramiya-taichou, we're very sorry to disturb you like this," she said, trying hard to look more serious than anything else.

"That's fine." Aramiya-taichou's gaze shifted between her and Ichigo. "I am quite busy though."

Ichigo pressed past, and it was possible to see Aramiya-taichou's neck tense.

"We need your help with something," he asserted. "It's about Byakuya."

"_Kuchiki-taichou_ to you," Aramiya-taichou corrected in turn, pursing her lips into a hard, straight line. "What about him? Have you come to be the bearer of more bad news, Kurosaki?"

She was generally considered a pleasant captain. Someone warm and easy to get along with in spite of her apparent distance. Now, however, a dark air settled itself about her, something defensive and hard that made Rukia's chest tighten. Closing the door behind her, she requested of whatever forces would listen that Ichigo wouldn't say something stupid.

"We think we know where he is. Yoruichi-san and I are going to head over there tonight," Ichigo explained resolutely.

"So I've heard."

"We wanted to come to you first though, taichou, to find out if you know anything about why Nii-sa – I mean – why Kuchiki-taichou is doing this," Rukia continued.

Aramiya-taichou tilted her head at her, gazing with less harshness than she had at Ichigo. She closed the folder on her lap and sighed with genuine regret, "I'm sorry, Rukia. I know nothing."

"But Byakuya must've said _something _to you," Ichigo persisted. "You two were a thing, right?"

"Ichigo!" Rukia snapped. There he went, saying something stupid. She should never have let him in on Nii-sama's business.

An unreadable expression flashed across Aramiya-taichou's face, something between a scowl and a grimace. Staring with enough disdain to kill a small animal, Aramiya-taichou spoke slowly and deliberately. "Frankly, I don't think I meant any more to Byakuya than anyone else."

It was obvious she'd been chewing on the words for a while, mulling them over in her mind. Having been cooped up in a hospital ward herself, Rukia was all too familiar with the kind of thoughts such clinical silence and isolation inspired. She considered again how Nii-sama had touched Aramiya-taichou, how he had looked at her with all the world's adoration – like his heart might break at the mere sight of her. Nii-sama could never look at anyone else like that.

"That can't be true," she muttered in response, and Aramiya-taichou glanced at her sadly.

"Sometimes the people we love don't love us back. It's as simple as that." Having said so, she returned her attention to Ichigo. "I don't have answers for you. No one does. Is there anything else you'd like to try and force from me, Kurosaki? If not, you're welcome to leave."

There was no hint of friendly suggestion in her voice.

"Okay," Ichigo grumbled. "Thanks anyway. We'll let you know what happens with the mission this evening."

Aramiya-taichou gestured with impassive grace to the papers around her. "No need. I'll have a report before you even get back."

Short and unsatisfactory. Exiting into the corridor and pulling closed the door on Aramiya-taichou, a gaping hole opened itself up in the pit of her stomach. What a mess this whole thing was. She was certain Nii-sama had something up his sleeve, that he had his reasons – he always did. But for him to have gone on his way without so much as a word… Not to her. Not to Renji. Not even to Aramiya-taichou. It was all just so wrong.

"Geez. Are all nobles so crabby, or is it just her and your brother?" Ichigo scowled.

Rukia didn't respond.


	51. An Official History

Chapter 51  
An Official History

In a shattering flurry, Mubōna and Yorokobi flung themselves through the door, looking almost comical with their wide-eyed expressions of horror.

"Kiyuku-chaaan! This is bad!" the boy, whom Kiyuku had decided to call Yorokobi, exclaimed. "_Bad_!"

"We must act quickly," the girl, or Mubōna, demanded in turn.

At her bedside before Kiyuku could respond, they grabbed her paperwork and tossed it aside. Reports, so carefully compiled by the two themselves, fluttered downwards into a white mess upon the floor – and with that, Yorokobi thrust an open envelope into Kiyuku's hand. Delicate paper, the handwriting on the front her father's.

"You'll want to read that _now_."

"We've also received word that the mission to rescue the Captain-Commander has ended in failure," Mubōna sounded almost flustered. "Muramasa was able to take command of Ryuujin-Jakka, and now Kyoraku-taichou and the others are trapped. Muramasa, along with Senbonzakura and Byakuya, are on their way to the human world. I wanted to write you a report, as you asked, but then the letter arrived…"

Overwhelmed by such an onslaught, Kiyuku's breath caught in her throat. Mubōna and Yorokobi watched her expectantly.

"Has anyone gone on to rescue them?" Kiyuku questioned after some thought.

"Hitsugaya-taichou and Hyourinmaru are on their way there now, Kiyuku-sama."

"Read the letter, for goodness sake!" Yorokobi insisted.

Kiyuku ripped the letter from its envelope, throwing it open with the speed that Yorokobi's alarm demanded. It was clear her father had written in a rush, his writing not so elegantly flourished as usual and the ink slightly smudged. As she read, the paper trembled within her hands.

_My dearest Kuku,_

_I will not waste time with formalities as the information I wish to share with you is of the utmost urgency. _

_My sources have sought to keep me updated with regards to news of the zanpakuto rebellion. The particulars of the zanpakuto named  
Muramasa have disturbed me greatly. _

_I felt it necessary therefore to request from my contacts at the Central 46 the reports that you find attached within this letter,  
for whose sharing I have received special permission from higher authorities.  
As you will see, Muramasa is no new figure in our history: some centuries ago, Muramasa belonged to the Shinigami Kuchiki Kōga,  
who used his zanpakuto's extraordinary and nefarious abilities to rebel against the Soul Society. _

_At the hands of Genryuusai Yamamoto and Kuchiki Ginrei, Kuchiki Kōga was imprisoned by a powerful seal and thereafter hidden in the human world's  
Karakura Town. It is my belief that Muramasa intends to free his master which, should he succeed, would be a most devastating feat._

_Until now, the information contained herein has been kept hidden from the greater part of Soul Society's population with only a select few,  
such as members of the Central 46, being privy to the particulars of this official version of history._

_On an unofficial note, I am certain you are wondering about the name this villain shares with our friends the Kuchikis.  
On account of his strength and respectability amongst his fellow Shinigami, Kuchiki Kōga was welcomed into the Kuchiki family as a son-in-law.  
A further family history is not necessary here, but it ought to be clear from the above that Kōga's betrayal  
was a deep injury to the _pride_ of the Kuchiki family. _

_I hope that you will use this information wisely, my sweet. _

_Be safe. Your mother and sisters send their love.  
Father _

Everything made sense.

Kiyuku's eyes skimmed over the letter twice more, an unforgiving sharpness pressing its way between her temples. _Pride_. Between the tidiness of her father's hand, the word was emphasised – whether purposefully or by an unfortunate slip of the writing brush, Kiyuku couldn't decide. Nonetheless, it was fateful. Byakuya's pride. A pride he would protect at all costs. So this was it. _This _was the cog turning in his mind.

Without looking up, Kiyuku confirmed the information Mubōna had shared, "You say Muramasa is heading to the human world?"

"Yes, Kiyuku-sama."

"Byakuya is with him?"

Mubōna hesitated. "Yes. That's right."

Thrusting the blanket off of her, ignoring the further scattering of papers, Kiyuku climbed out from the bed to get dressed. Though her state of health was perhaps still questionable, she was in a better condition than the first time she'd gone after Byakuya; without being compounded by the effects of her Bankai, her injuries were healing much quicker and she would probably be able to fight without toppling over afterwards. Of course though, her zanpakuto seemed to disagree.

"Kiyuku-sama. Please lie back down – we'll perform whatever duties need to be carried out. You must rest," Mubōna said.

"Don't think for a moment that we're going to babysit you. We're not private nurses," Yorokobi grumbled, turning his nose up in disgust.

Kiyuku ignored them. She pulled on her clothes with anxious haste, giving instructions as she did so, "Yorokobi, I need you to go to where Kyoraku-taichou and the others are. Do whatever you can to help and then relay news on the situation back to me. Mubōna, take this letter to Unohana-taichou and tell her I'm having a Senkaimon prepared to go to the real world. I don't know what we can expect to find there, but it may be necessary to call upon reinforcements."

"Why do _I _have to do the heavy lifting?" Yorokobi pouted.

Mubōna flashed him a look, rolling her eyes, and then returned her attention to Kiyuku. "With regards to the letter: shall I show Unohana-taichou the _whole _thing?"

A pause. Kiyuku eyed the important little paper and thought about its contents. The official and the unofficial. "Give it here for a moment."

Yorokobi raised an eyebrow at her. "_Please_."

"Just give it."

When she had it between her fingers, Kiyuku folded the last section and neatly tore it away. There was no need for anyone else to know about that side of things – not just yet.

With the rest of the letter securely in her possession, Mubōna departed in a graceful rush down the corridor. Kiyuku finished dressing, thinking she was perhaps not as put together as she would have liked – no perfume, eyes looking slack and darkened. The bruise on her face was taking a long time to disappear. In the mirror, Kiyuku prodded it before combing her fingers through her hair hurriedly.

All the while, Yorokobi stood in brooding silence and watched her.

"Kiyuku-chan?"

"What is it?"

"You shouldn't worry so much about Byakuya." He took Kiyuku's katana from its place next to the nightstand, moving to hand it to her. "He's a dick."

"Please don't say that," Kiyuku took the sword and secured it to her person.

"Do you think he's going to try and fight that Kōga guy?" The question was genuine.

Kiyuku sighed. "That's what I've assumed."

"And you're going to help him?"

Staring into Yorokobi's sharply carved features – an exaggerated downward curve to his lips, a delicately furrowed brow – Kiyuku considered her answer. "Byakuya doesn't need my help. If it's his plan to defend his family's pride, I'm going to make sure no one gets in his way," she said. "And if that doesn't work, then I'll kill Kuchiki Kōga myself."

Yorokobi smirked. "And why would you try to do that?"

"The Kuchikis aren't an entity on their own. What affects one noble family affects all of us," Kiyuku shrugged, turning to the door. "I suppose, in a round-about way, you could say my own pride is on the line here."

"You didn't even know about this whole thing until ten minutes ago."

"Fine. Call it pay-back then, if that's what you want."

A throaty, sensual chuckle. "Now that sounds about right."

Putting a cool, soft hand against her cheek, Yorokobi leaned forward and kissed Kiyuku's forehead. It was wholly unexpected, but not exactly unwelcome – like a butterfly landing on one's knuckles. Kiyuku said nothing at the intimate contact, though she felt a smile tug at her mouth. It hadn't taken long to recognise that, out of the two of them, Yorokobi was the sentimental one.

When he pulled away and turned to make for the door, he waved his hand in an elegant flourish. "See you later, Kiyuku-chan. Don't do anything I wouldn't."


	52. Kōga

Chapter 52  
Kōga

Kiyuku reached the Senkaimon and decided she couldn't wait.

Until then, she hadn't been angry. Not once. Confused, yes; perhaps even hurt and frustrated, but not angry. It may very well have been because she'd blamed herself, as though her childish little temper tantrum was enough to have driven Byakuya to betray them. Of course, it didn't actually make much sense to think in such a way – she had no doubt that she'd hurt him, but she'd also known that logically she had nothing to do with the whole thing. Logically. However, logic had not been her strong suit the last couple of weeks.

Even now, she knew in her mind Byakuya had been under no obligation to tell her anything. She was not that important to him. As she entered the Senkaimon though, dashing through into the human world, Kiyuku experienced a distilled smoldering between her lungs. It branched and clutched at her organs, burning like an acid.

Had he told her, she would have understood. She would probably have even helped him – not that he would have wanted her to, obviously. Regardless, there were a multitude of better ways Byakuya could have gone about protecting his honour. Ways in which he wouldn't have made things so difficult for everyone and, mostly, for her.

It wasn't all about her though.

She knew it.

Still, Kiyuku couldn't shake the sense that she'd been personally wronged. That, by not coming to her, Byakuya had breached a significant and unspoken rule between them – had it been her, she would have trusted him. With a secret. With her life, if it came to that. But no. He had to go at it alone. He was a strong, proud Kuchiki, after all, and she was just about nothing to him. After everything, she was nothing.

At the end other end of the Senkaimon, where her guiding Hell Butterfly fluttered off into hazy dimness, Kiyuku emerged alongside a pond. Or what she figured would have been a pond. It was frozen over, stupidly cold and stinking of swamp. Around her were bushes, their fronts frosted though the plants behind remained green and untouched – and out on the frozen body of water, standing not far off and facing away from her, was Byakuya.

Back a stiff line against the horizon, he didn't move. It wasn't immediately clear why. His sword was hung from a peculiar angle at his side and his shoulders were oddly slanted.

Kiyuku, heaving in a sharp, quiet breath, ducked down amongst the bushes.

A man stood in front of Byakuya. The stranger, barely clothed, was emaciated and ashen – what once must have been a well-muscled body was now but flesh stretched over vengeful bones. From her place by the water, Kiyuku could see his mouth form inaudible words. Slow, smirking. There seemed to be a muzzle of some sort encaging his face, broken around the jaw, while a crimson scarf hung over his shoulders like a tremendous wound. He didn't tear his gaze from Byakuya. Could this have been Kōga?

Byakuya drew his sword, though the movement was sluggish and troubled, and Kiyuku gripped her own in an instinctive response. She wasn't about to interrupt, not unless things took a turn for the worse, but still she waited in a position to pounce. With marvelous efficiency for a body so afflicted, the man, Kōga, shunpo'ed away onto a raised piece of island. Golden halberds stood impaled in the island's dirt, the remnants of his imprisonment-seal, and he gripped one of them viciously.

He shouted something. Thrust forth the halberd's bladed edge. It glided in an easy, relentless path towards Byakuya – he'd be able to dodge it; he shunpo'ed away.

Only, horrifyingly, he reappeared without having exited the halberd's course.

The blade caught his arm with terrifying speed and sent his sword tumbling across the ice. A shriek reared itself in Kiyuku's throat; she had to bite her tongue to silence it, though the unescaped sound choked her. Why hadn't he moved out the way?

Kōga clutched a second halberd and set it flying. This time it was not in any way directed towards Byakuya; nonetheless, he shunpo'ed once again. Back into the weapon's path. Entrapping his other arm in the sharp and intricate metal work.

_What was he doing_?

He was halfway to facing Kiyuku now, and she could see in his profile that he was just as shocked as she was. Shocked, confused. She considered rushing to help, but it wasn't time. She figured she would know without question when she was needed. She hoped she would know.

Holding a third halberd, Kōga thrust his hands out towards Byakuya, sending forth a raging swirl of ice. Perhaps he himself had frozen the pond.

When Byakuya spoke, summoning a kidō barrier between himself and the attack, Kiyuku could hear his voice. Indeed, he would have seemed perfectly composed to any outsider – but Kiyuku recognised the flustered intonations, the slight rise in tone to say he was anything but composed. Something more was wrong though, as though he were blind or deaf. The barrier erected itself before him though Kōga's bombardment came from the side, and when the freezing torrent passed, Byakuya was trapped.

Kiyuku watched him squirm against the ice that enveloped his torso and everything below it. Her fingers trembled against her sword – _now? _

Throwing back his too-large head, laughter ghosted itself from Kōga's chest. "You're pathetic!" Kiyuku heard him say. "Let's end this, Head of the Kuchiki House!"

He pointed the bladed edge of the halberd towards Byakuya, who glared in unyielding silence. He charged with animal violence. Kiyuku, swallowing the desire to scream for Byakuya, thrust out her palm in Kōga's direction. She needed to be fast. She needed to be effective – "Hadō Number 63: Thun…"

With a wicked howl, Kōga lunged for the kill. Kiyuku was ready to do the same. However, both out of shock and relief, she couldn't finish the kidō spell, her words trailing off into a silent gasp.

From its discarded position upon the ice, Byakuya's sword released – he hadn't said anything, couldn't possibly have done much from his current position. No. His sword released _itself_, sending out its multitude of shimmering blades against the readied edge of Kōga's weapon. As though by a vice-grip, it was held in place, hardly centimeters from Byakuya's head. Against the glow of the petal-like display, Kiyuku could see the horror as it twisted itself across Kōga's features.

An indistinct form, at first seeming to be a trick of the light, leaned itself against Byakuya. Protective, companionable – as it shaped and solidified, Kiyuku recognised the masked man that had called Byakuya 'master'. Senbonzakura. He said something Kiyuku couldn't make out. The ice that encaged Byakuya shattered beneath the touch of his shimmering blades and the halberds fell away with an echoing clang. Just as suddenly as Senbonzakura had appeared, he was gone, glistening back into life as a sword in Byakuya's hand.

What followed was nearly too fast to properly comprehend. Kiyuku could have held her breath and it would all have been over before she needed to breathe again.

Without hesitation, Byakuya allowed his sword to descend into the ice, a glorious wall of blades rising in turn as though from nothing. They glinted, sharp enough to cut through the evening's fog, and scattered into a mass of blossoms that danced and grew against the dimness. Like a wall, they enclosed Byakuya and Kōga, an arena in which two reiatsu flared in overwhelming strength. Kiyuku watched impatiently, having lost any sense of her own body, as the two struck and assaulted each other. Forceful. Vengeful. Reiatsu ever mounting in a steady, violent climb.

They paused, plateaued, and Kiyuku felt a million numb pin-pricks down her leg. There was a faltering in Kōga's energy, not so much from exhaustion as from overwhelming emotion. In echoes, Kiyuku heard him talking – muttering, screaming, lamenting. She couldn't make out his words, could hardly see his face, but there was so much pain in what was clear to her. Such hatred and betrayal. It was almost shocking when, halfway through the battle's silence, Byakuya's blades exploded in intolerable brightness.

They gathered around him, a gorgeous display that melted from pink to flaming white, and Byakuya released the final form of his Bankai.

Kōga responded in turn, pushing forth all of his sinful, odious reiatsu so that the ice around him shattered. He and Byakuya lunged for each other, blades pointed to the ready and the air seeming to darken around them: a suffering submission to the weight of power.

They collided. Kiyuku had to shield her eyes.

And then it was over.

Their reiatsu faded. A frozen wind blew around Kiyuku's limbs as she stood to squint through the mist.

Surprising herself, she didn't immediately look to Byakuya – he was weak and exhausted, reiatsu flickering like a little candle, but she could tell he was fine. Instead, she watched Kōga's trembling form as he hobbled to the end of the ice island. To stand, he had to lean himself on the handle of his halberd. To stretch out his arm seemed to suck out all his remaining strength.

"Come, Muramasa!" she heard him plead. Nothing. Silence in return. "Why won't you come?"

After all of this, had his zanpakuto abandoned him?

After all of _this_?

Kōga continued to reach for the emptiness, heaving in breaths so heavy Kiyuku could hear his chest rumble through the distance. One final cry of his zanpakuto's name. Once again, there was nothing – and he collapsed over the edge of his island, sinking down into the murky pond with dead weight that made Kiyuku's stomach churn.

Kiyuku narrowed her eyes into the ripples he left behind, as though waiting for his corpse to lurch out from the depths to which it sank. It didn't. It was really over.

When at last she turned her gaze to Byakuya, a dizzying wave sizzled through her. He was facing her, features indiscernible through the fog; Kiyuku shunpo'ed out from the bushes and across the water, feeling her heart rise into her throat with anticipation and dread as she met his rigid stare.

"Why are you here?" Byakuya demanded, Senbonzakura kneeling protectively at his side.

Ignoring him, Kiyuku's eye locked onto the gash across his shoulder – horrendous and jagged, it stretched from his neck to the base of his chest, oozing blood and stinking of metal. "You're hurt."

"You should see the other guy," Senbonzakura, to Kiyuku's surprise, muttered just loud enough for her to hear.

Byakuya shot his zanpakuto an expressionless look of warning and Kiyuku, though knowing it was perhaps inappropriate considering the context, felt herself smile. Only for a moment, though. She turned her attention back to Byakuya, lifting her fingers to graze the wound before flattening her palm. In a dull, subtle buzz, spiritual energy pressed itself through her skin and into Byakuya's.

He raised his eyebrows at her. "You can do healing kidō?"

"It's very rudimentary, but it'll do until the fourth squad gets here." She felt his heartbeat, real and full-bodied beneath her hand, and without a façade of resistance committed it to memory. Byakuya looked away from her – a slight and deliberate angling of his head that pierced Kiyuku's heart in a million ways. She glanced again to the water. "Kōga…"

"This is the natural outcome for a weak-hearted person who controls great power," Byakuya said coldly. "In the end, the power controls them."

Of course, he was right. Had Kōga not had such immense power, he wouldn't have had such preposterous dreams. It was inevitable that this was how it would end. Still, Kiyuku's heart was heavy with pity for the man she'd never known otherwise. There wasn't any way of putting her finger on it, but he'd seemed so despairing, so lost and alone. She sighed.

Then she felt her back go rigged at the sound of Yorokobi's voice from behind her.

"Geez, even when you've been beaten to a pulp, you're _still_ so pretentious."

Byakuya was already staring. Not withdrawing her hand from his chest – for the sake of his wound, of course – Kiyuku looked back to watch Mubōna and Yorokobi glide across the ice towards them, kimonos fluttering like flower fields. They glared at Byakuya. Senbonzakura leaped up to his master's defense.

"Show some respect!" he demanded. "Byakuya-sama was willing to sully his name by becoming a traitor, all to fight for his beliefs."

"Calm down," Mubōna cooed, to which Senbonzakura stiffened noticeably. "Yorokobi simply enjoys being pretentious himself."

"Apologies, my princess."

_Princess_? Kiyuku's words caught in her throat at the bizarre nickname. Byakuya, too, seemed taken aback. They watched the three zanpakuto bicker amongst themselves, each of them taking turns to make exaggerated gestures and pull faces at each other like a trio of distressed teenagers. It would have been comical had Kiyuku's heart not been raging against its ribcage.

Looking back to her fingers, spread apart and trembling slightly upon Byakuya's flesh, she said his name in the quietest voice she could muster. "About what I said…"

He was equally quiet, a disconcerting mix of tender and stern. "Not now."

"But…"

"I said not now."

"Are you two almost done?" Yorokobi demanded shrilly. "We've got other shit to attend to, you know."

Indeed, Kiyuku had until now ignored the distant fighting that had been going on around them – she'd recognised Rukia's reiatsu, that of Kurosaki Ichigo as well and what she assumed to be his friends, all of them pitted against the amassing weight of Hollows and something much darker. If Mubōna and Yorokobi were here, it meant the other Shinigami would be on their way as well. Kōga may have been dead, but the ripple effects of his vile legacy were not finished yet.

Kiyuku, biting the inside of her cheek, did as much as she could on Byakuya's wound. She watched as the blood seeped back into tissue, as the skin stitched itself together in a thin covering – and soon enough, there was nothing more that she could do. Without a word, the space between them even emptier and ever more unresolved, she and Byakuya departed alongside their zanpakuto for the next battleground.


	53. Goodbye Kiyuku

Chapter 53  
Goodbye Kiyuku

(One Week Later)

Most seemed willing to forgive him without much more than a sideways glance. Apart from a hefty fine, there wouldn't be any serious repercussions for his actions. A week had passed since Byakuya had killed Kōga; a week since despair had driven Muramasa to suicidal self-destruction – and life had resumed as usual. Byakuya ran his squad with composed calm, visiting those officers he had injured and overseeing the relevant reparations. The Kuchiki household rebalanced itself, the elders thoroughly relieved by Byakuya's return and Rukia being clingier than usual.

Indeed, things fell back into place with relative ease.

Except for things surrounding Kiyuku.

Byakuya hadn't seen her, working hard to maintain a façade of indifference. It was an increasingly difficult endeavor – in the first few days, Kiyuku had tried her best to see him, often only to be turned away by other people on Byakuya's behalf. Renji. The maids. He couldn't ever venture to do it himself. Certainly, it was both purposeful plotting and an act of cowardice – but when her attempts were replaced with piercing silence, when her persistent presence dissipated and there were but ghosts of her in memory, Byakuya suffered more than he'd expected. Aimless and disappointed, he missed her and denied his ability to do anything about it.

For the sake of his pride, he had left her twice: once at the hands of her zanpakuto, and now. Avoiding her with reluctant resolve. Refusing her with pained determination. It was something for which he would possibly never forgive himself, and he was of course not surprised when Kiyuku's eye did not meet his in the captain's meeting that day. Nonetheless, there was an ache in Byakuya's chest at the sight of her. Lips in a tight-set line, shoulders taut, she was a small and perfect image, pulling off apathy just as well as he himself could.

The nauseating thud of his heart was impossible to ignore, the unyielding contraction in his throat a demanding presence.

And when the captain's meeting came to an end, she was the first to leave. She didn't bother to comment further on Kurosaki Ichigo – he had once again depleted his spiritual energy in fighting Muramasa, and the verdict this time was that his powers would not be returned – nor did she say goodbye to anyone. Kiyuku only glided out, as though upon a cold and quiet wind.

Had things gone unchanged, she and Byakuya would probably have done something unofficially celebratory. Neither of them had wanted Kurosaki Ichigo to keep his powers; it had been one of their first points of bonding. Throughout the afternoon, Byakuya considered this, painfully aware of the empty spaces alongside him – she'd always filled them so well. Everything about her had felt right. Lovely and vibrant and so perfectly right, it should have come as no shock that he hadn't been able to do anything but fall.

Yet, the impending wrongness of it all was excruciating.

Of course, in spite of her anger all those weeks ago, she wasn't mistaken about Hisana. Byakuya was no fool; he knew his wife had never loved him. Respected him, yes. In her own way, she'd cared for him, but never loved him. Yet, he couldn't find it in his heart to let Hisana go. Kiyuku deserved more than that. More than already-wilted blossoms and gouged affections. More than a heart half-chained to a grave.

That evening, when Byakuya faced his own ultimatum and went to see her, she was sitting in the fifth squad's gardens. Beneath the trees' naked branches, unfazed by the icy breeze as she was by his presence, she scribbled mindlessly in a fist-sized notebook. Poetry. About winter. About him, maybe. Her hair was up in a haphazard bun, clipped by a crystal orchid – the same as she'd worn at her sister's wedding. Byakuya stared in silence. He loved her hair like that.

Though he was doing nothing to conceal his reiatsu, Kiyuku did not so much as blink in his direction. She only continued to move her hand deftly over the pages.

"Kiyuku."

Her writing paused, but still she did not look up: a beautifully motionless picture, save for the slightest sweep of her loose wisps of hair.

When she finally spoke, she did not sound unhappy. Nor particularly reserved. It was a voice with which she would have addressed any other captain: poised, approachable, and unaffected. A sweet and precise smoothness that Byakuya had come to be unfamiliar with. "Do you need something?"

He stepped into the garden, went towards her. "Are you alright?"

"Quite, thank you," she said, closing the book and averting her eyes to some obscure bush.

"I've come to apologise."

A shrug. "There's no need. You were only protecting the honour of your family." At last, she looked at him. "I should hope that I would have done the same thing for mine."

Despite her otherwise coolly chiseled mask, Kiyuku's eyes had never been much good at keeping secrets. A swirling mass of feeling, mismatched blues of resentment and sadness and adoration. Byakuya did not shy away from looking into them – into those heartbreaking, uncoordinated shades.

"That's not what I'm here for," he said, and the words seemed to clog themselves against the roof of his mouth.

There was a tightening in Kiyuku's features. She stood, sweeping her hands against her robes, and Byakuya realised he'd forgotten how beautiful she was. That private loveliness in her lips, known only to him because he had kissed it; the shady half-moons beneath her eyes, accentuated by fading spots of her face's bruise; the scar on her forehead, the surprising curve of her cheek bones, those gentle oddities he had caressed under the cover of darkness – none of them flaws, all of them adornments.

Kiyuku stared up at him. "Then what?"

For some moments, Byakuya said nothing. The shiver in Kiyuku's voice was too distracting, the backlog of emotion in her tiny frame too daunting. He didn't need to consider his words. Without her, he had thought over and over about what he had to say. About how to break her heart with all the grace he could offer.

Only now, to actually be confronted with the words' syllables upon his tongue, he realised the impossibility of gentleness. "You said you loved me."

"I didn't mean it," Kiyuku said flatly, lowering her gaze. "I didn't mean any of the things I said."

"Good." Byakuya knew she was lying, and he couldn't possibly blame her. He didn't want to do what he was about to just as much as she probably didn't want to hear it. His heart, in horrendous drumbeats, begged him to stop – to turn and walk away, maybe salvage whatever pieces of them he still could. But he couldn't. He looked at Kiyuku and felt every piece of himself shatter. "Because I don't love you."

The words burned, their intonations piercing and cruel.

Kiyuku only nodded. "I know."

"Nonetheless, I do want the best for you," Byakuya continued. "I'mhonoured by your affections for me, but there is nothing I can offer in return."

"Yes. I know."

"So I hope that one day, when you do love another man, he'll be able to love you as you deserve. That he won't waste your time."

He'd expected her to be angry, had steeled himself against the possibility of tears. There were none. Kiyuku only lifted her face to his, a pallour like snowless winter making her look drained and despondent. In an unspoken moment of tragedy, Byakuya knew he'd barred himself from her. Locked himself away in some hidden corner with little hope of finding another key.

The white flesh of Kiyuku's throat rose and fell. She droned quietly, "Is that all?"

A pause. Byakuya told her yes.

"Then this is goodbye, Kuchiki-san."

"Goodbye Kiyuku."

He left her behind in the evening's grey, knowing that if he looked back he wouldn't be able to carry on walking. If she only asked him to stay, he would've. Without a doubt, he would've crumbled and taken it all back and held her to him in a guilty embrace. But she didn't. She watched him leave with uncharacteristic silence and accepted the hand that had been dealt with dignity. For it all, Byakuya hated himself – weighed down by the conflicting hope that she would move on and love someone else, torn by the wish that he was enough of a man to be that someone.

Because he did love her. With the little heart he had left, he loved her and he knew it.


	54. Shame

Chapter 54  
Shame

Kiyuku ate to stay quiet, scoffing down snacks though she tasted no flavour. Every inch of her was sensitive, raw – she couldn't bear the weight of her family's eyes against her, felt fragile within their hugs. It was her first day off since the rebellion and she'd promised she would come to see them. They'd been worried. Her sisters had only just found out about her getting hurt and were over-eager to smother her. It was overwhelming; Kiyuku knew she was miserable company, but could only muster weak responses and a desire to sleep.

"How are your injuries, Kuku-chan?"

_Fine_.

"What was your zanpakuto spirit like?"

_Like_ _me_.

She was exhausted and wanted badly to disappear.

All things considered, she knew she probably did need to rest for a while. Since the end of everything, she hadn't stopped working. There'd been an abundance of paperwork; there were repairs and reparations to see to; she had a squad to motivate. All of it while she had absolutely no motivation for anything herself. None of the seated officers seemed to notice, which meant she was doing a good enough job of hiding it. Hinamori had realised something was amiss though – it was clear from the unnecessarily extra effort she put into her work, colour-coding her notes and staying longer hours to help out. The attempts were appreciated but ineffective, and Kiyuku had told Hinamori to take an extra day off.

There was nothing her lieutenant could do.

Nothing her family could do either, though they tried their best.

Mina, smilingly, brushed a piece of hair behind Kiyuku's ear. If she was disgusted, she hid it well – Kiyuku hadn't washed her hair in some time. "I bet your zanpakuto spirit was a lot of fun to be around when they turned good again," Mina said.

"The one was."

"There was more than one?" Mama tilted her head.

"Mubōna and Yorokobi. Yorokobi was the fun one."

"And Mubōna?" Aniko and Chiyo questioned together.

"She was serious."

_Mubōna and Yorokobi_. If they were around, they would probably have known what Kiyuku needed. She sighed. She missed them. Meditating and speaking as they always had just wasn't quite the same anymore. Most of the other captains seemed relieved to have had their zanpakuto return to normal but Kiyuku would've liked to have had them around a little longer. Perhaps then the space around her wouldn't have felt so desolate and forbidding, so… incomplete.

Mama hummed. "One fun, one serious," she mused. "Sounds about right."

More questions. More invitations to open up and have an actual conversation, though it seemed she'd forgotten what it was to enjoy talking. Despite the full-bodied nausea that pinched her stomach, Kiyuku ate more of the pastries her mother had set out, refilled her tea and stared into it listlessly.

"What on earth is going on with you?" Papa, clearly growing impatient with her maudlin silence, questioned at last.

Kiyuku lowered her gaze in shame. She shouldn't have come. Not today. Not like _this_.

"Have they got you on some kind of medication?" Mama probed further, more gently. "Did something else happen during the rebellion that we don't know about?"

She was talking about massacres and atrocities beyond comprehension. Posttraumatic stress disorder and such. Sinking into herself further, knowing that her tragedies were not nearly so terrible and yet not managing to convince herself entirely of that truth, Kiyuku only shook her head.

"You can tell us what's going on, Kuku," Mina leaned forward and spoke with a maternal warmth that irked Kiyuku.

As though she were a child. Some sort of delicate flower. Helplessly, she felt her nose turn up in disgust. "Nothing's going on. I'm tired."

"It's more than that," Chiyo insisted, to which Aniko nodded.

"You're being difficult, Kiyuku," her father said. "Talk to us."

_Is it this? Is it that? Talk to us. Talk to us. Talk to us. _

As much as she wanted to, as much as wished she could put words to the gouged out feeling in her chest and the sagging ache in her bones, Kiyuku only muttered over and over again. _I'm fine. There's nothing. I'm fine_.

Until finally the guillotine fell and Mina questioned deliberately with the all-knowing tone of a confidante and traitor, "What about Byakuya?"

Something broke in unnamed places around Kiyuku's body. A bone. Her heart – all over again. She hadn't wanted to ever hear his name again and at the same time had waited with bated breath for his presence to rear itself once more. She worked hard and didn't think about him. She stayed up until she was too tired to cope and then fell into agitated sleep. In everything, she denied it all and managed to maintain a delicate pretense. But now, Mina spoke his name without a care in the world – it wasn't her fault, she didn't know – but she had done it and now Kiyuku's thin excuse of a bandage had been ripped away.

With unintended viciousness, she spat, "What about him, _Mina_?"

Immediately, her father's neck stiffened. "This is about Kuchiki-san?"

"No."

But her mother persisted. "We want to help you, Kuku," she placed a delicate, white hand on Kiyuku's back. "What did Byakuya do?"

"Nothing! It's… It's not…"

Chiyo, Mina and Aniko exchanged wary glances. Kiyuku watched the twins' fingers fidget in their laps, feeling her own hands resist the urge to do the same.

"Kiyuku…" Mina said seriously. "You didn't sleep with him, did you?"

Another breaking. This one louder and much more painful, like her entire spine folding in upon itself. Face flaring, uncertain whether from fury or utter shame, Kiyuku slammed her empty cup onto the table. She would never have asked her sisters such a question in front of their parents – even if her parents already knew the answers. Yes, yes, yes. A secret stairway of horny indecency. One from which she was exempt. Both by her own choice and, in more recent months, by a gross inability to make a man love her.

"No! I did _not _sleep with him," Kiyuku declared, and by opening her mouth she opened a doorway to so much more. She would regret what she said next. She knew it and didn't stop herself. "I didn't sleep with Byakuya, but I would've. I absolutely would've if it hadn't been for his dead, fucking wife."

There was a resounding gasp. From it, Kiyuku was stunned by the sick thrill that electrified her flesh. It felt cruel and so very good to say it – yet, it was also violating. She'd never cursed out loud before; she would never have insulted the dead otherwise; to do so now, in a white blaze of frenzy, made a thin film of dirt grow over Kiyuku's tongue. Metal. Blood. Her heart pounded in her ears. The horrified looks of her mother and sisters went straight through her like light reflected.

Her father though, colour quickly receding from his face as he stood to tower above Kiyuku, made everything else disappear. He rounded the table, steps light and slow like a feline predator.

Only twice in her life had Kiyuku been afraid of her father.

When she was a little girl, she'd kicked an old man – that was the first time. They were doing some sort of charity work in Rukongai and, out of nowhere, the beggar had grabbed her hand; she'd screamed, he'd let go, but in a frightened moment she'd kicked him. It just so happened that her father had looked in their direction at that very moment. Kiyuku, without words to explain, had felt her father's fury simmering beneath her own flesh like a hot iron. Publicly, he'd made her apologise. Privately, he'd spanked her so hard and so many times that his handprints all moulded themselves into one giant bruise on her skin. That was the only time he'd ever hit her: for her shameful actions, for her horrid treatment of that poor man.

That was the first time he'd hit her; the first time she'd been afraid of him.

This was the second time.

She tried to swallow back her words. Tried to take them back – she'd meant them, but not as they'd come out, and she tried to take them back. But her father moved fast around the table, too fast for anyone to realise what was happening until it was too late. In a slicing gesture, he gripped Kiyuku's wrist and yanked her up to stand. Hard, so that her shoulder felt like it would pop out of its socket. His hand went back. Kiyuku felt her mother bolt up next to her.

"Sakudo! Stop –" Mama didn't get to finish.

His palm tore across Kiyuku's face. Not as a gentle father, nor as a man to a Shinigami captain, but with all the poised harshness of a noble family-head.

Everything went silent. Kiyuku couldn't even hear her own heartbeat, though it pounded to life in the burn of her father's handprint. As though she'd been stripped naked, flung out and beaten on the streets, her sisters averted their eyes. Chiyo seemed to sob. In a dazed moment, Kiyuku's head disconnected itself from the rest of her body and spun across the room – she knew perfectly well what had just happened, but she touched her fingers to her cheek as though in disbelief. An instinctive motion.

The pain dissolved quickly and embedded itself much deeper: at the back of her skull as a dull throbbing, in the pit of her gut as an acidic hatred. She felt herself glare back at her father, straightening herself and holding her head high before him. That time with the beggar, she'd squirmed and cried and apologised to everyone and nothing – _I didn't mean to, daddy! _Now, however, she angled her chin at him as she would at an enemy.

Whether from the attack or from the shame, Kiyuku's face seared itself with red heat.

Only a few seconds passed, though it felt like an eternity under the dismayed gaze of her family.

"You will never, _ever _speak about someone like that again," her father hissed, waving a finger at her. "Do I make myself clear?"

_Yes, daddy. Sorry, father. I'm so sorry. _

Far from being under her own control, Kiyuku's lips contorted themselves into what must have been a hideous scowl. Closing her eyes to him, heaving in a sharp and trembling breath aflame, she shook her shoulders in an impertinent show of control. "I'm leaving now."

Mama tried to grip her arm. Mina stood to follow, as though Kiyuku were a little girl storming off to her bedroom. No. She marched out through the doorway and into the garden, leaving behind her a horrified shuffling and a broken evening. Slow and graceful. Composed, like the proud captain she was – at least until she got to the edge of the garden, from where she darted off in a vicious flash step. Her chest caved in and set itself on fire. The wind, unforgivingly wintery, bit at the still-burning skin of her cheeks.

A tear slithered from her eye and seemed to freeze along its bitter, smooth path.


	55. Littlest of Little Girls

**A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who read and left reviews on the last few chapters! It's so wonderful to be able to read your feedback. I hope you will all continue to enjoy. :)**

Chapter 55  
Littlest of Little Girls

After that atrocious scene, his daughters had all left in a flurry – out into the undisturbed night, back to their husbands to tell with what cruelty their father had hit their sister.

Sakudo sat on their bedroom floor, swirling his sake in a brooding sulk. In the other room, the servants were helping Narime undress for the evening. He could hear the swish of materials, the low mutterings of a dismayed wife. A second cup of sake sat waiting for her, untouched on a tray.

It had been some hours and still his fingers trembled. Always, Sakudo had promised he would never _ever _hit his daughters. They were not glass but they were precious and he wouldn't dare do anything to hurt them. But Kiyuku – oh, that child. She hadn't meant it, of course. Sakudo knew. Something had happened and she was not herself. Still, he had raised his hand against her in a blind fit of fury. If his daughters were to be prejudiced, let them be so silently. If they were to hate someone else, let them do it in the privacy of their own hearts. For Kiyuku to have allowed something so vile to spew from her mouth… It was not how he had raised her.

In all his years, he had tried to teach his daughters grace. He tried to teach them to be gentle and kind and wise.

Well. Quite the example he was.

He threw back his sake, potent and bitter, before pouring more.

The shoji slid open. Narime, looking thin in a pale blue yukata, hair down to her waist in greying-amber straights, waved off the servants and stepped into the bedroom. She eyed him with a weak smile, pulling the shoji closed again. "Wouldn't you rather sit at the table?"

"No. I should be sitting in the dirt."

She hummed. "You did behave quite terribly."

"Kiyuku will never forgive me," Sakudo sighed. He continued to swirl his cup.

Feet tapping like fine drops of rain, Narime came to sit. She took the other cup of sake and balanced it deftly between her fingers, shaking her head. "Of course she will – don't be so dramatic."

"I embarrassed her."

"She embarrassed herself." Always so composed and calm. "Though Mina did walk her into a rather awkward situation."

At the mention of it, Sakudo cringed. He was not naïve – that his daughters should have sex lives was a fact he'd accepted long ago. They were pretty, they were healthy, and they did not exist in a household of restrictions or traditional relics. It was bound to happen. They would love a man besides their father. Even Kiyuku, the littlest of his little girls.

As much as Sakudo may have accepted it though, the thought of his lovely daughters being wooed in secret and unspoken ways, of slipping from his fingers into the arms of men… No, no. He refused to do more than acknowledge it abstractly.

Head struggling beneath the weighty demands of discontent, Sakudo pressed the heel of his hand to his eye. Wipe the knowledge from his mind. Blind himself to the facts. He tried not to entertain any delusions about his daughters; he reminded himself often that they were not small goddesses, pure and divine – Mina was condescending and at times callous, Chiyo and Aniko were entitled, Kiyuku was too proud for her own good. However, still reeling from Kiyuku's outburst, Sakudo found himself ever more unable to stay angry at her.

Granted, she'd said something heartless; but then again, was Kuchiki Byakuya not also to blame? After all, _he _had pursued Kiyuku: the kimono, all the dinner invitations. As stubborn as Kiyuku was, it was unsurprising that she'd fallen head-over-heels for the man, floating through the last few months in a giddy daydream. She'd been gorgeously obvious and in the face of it all, Sakudo had held his tongue. Kuchiki Byakuya was an honourable man. Surely, Sakudo had reasoned, he wouldn't be doing it all for nothing – surely, if he was expending so much energy on Kiyuku, he didn't plan to simply string her along in a delayed attempt at frivolity. Perhaps he'd finally released himself from his late-wife's clutches. Sakudo had thought there'd be no reason to worry.

Over his sake, he began to seethe. He should have put a stop to the whole thing from the very first moment.

Blinking in surprise at his darkening aura, Narime tilted her head. "Is this still about Kiyuku?" she questioned.

"Absolutely not. It's about me. I was such a fool."

"To have lost your temper? Yes. I think we've already established that."

"No," Sakudo hissed. "To have allowed our daughter to go running about with Kuchiki Byakuya."

Narime frowned, deepening the delicate wrinkles around her eyes. She touched her fingers to Sakudo's arm and hummed attentively.

"I knew from the beginning that he would break her heart – whatever he's done, I knew it was coming," Sakudo continued, lowering the empty sake cup to bounce it against his knee. "Even if I didn't protect her, at least _I _can see Kiyuku's worth. But Byakuya… If he can hurt her like this, he's an even bigger fool than I am."

"We don't know the whole story," Narime crooned. "Don't you think there could be more to it?"

With a furious wave of his hand, Sakudo dismissed the notion. "Not in the least. If he's so utterly _stupid _to still be pining after that little street urchin, then he doesn't deserve our daughter. Let him sully the Kuchiki standard with Rukongai dirt, for all I care. I won't allow Kiyuku to be lowered to the same level."

Narime smacked his shoulder with enough force to shock. Sakudo, whipping his head to look at her, was met with a dangerous glare.

"If you're going to punish our daughter for speaking harshly about Hisana-san, you ought to be held to the same standard," Narime said sternly. Withdrawing her hand, lifting the sake cup to her lips, she was silent for a moment.

In the public sphere, Sakudo had been as respectful of Hisana as could have been expected – he'd extended invitations, made small talk – but it was all a very flimsy veil. Beyond trivial words and forced smiles, Sakudo knew he'd been cold towards her. As though she were a servant. No, even the servants were treated more kindly.

It was more the case that if she were a vase, he could have knocked her over and not thought twice about it.

She was plastic amongst crystal. Paper amongst silk. She didn't belong and that was her greatest crime.

Under any other circumstances, Sakudo would have been aghast by the other families' treatment of this poor creature – without any delusions, he knew that his coldness was amongst the warmest of what she'd received. However, biased as he was by his friendship with Sōjun and disgusted by the strife Hisana had caused in the Kuchiki household, Sakudo made no efforts to do anything but dislike her.

He'd thought her death would be the last of it. That he wouldn't have to deal with upsets at the hands of the scamp any longer.

Yet, here they were.

Perhaps this was Byakuya's personal act of vengeance. Maybe he'd hurt Kiyuku as an act of retribution for the hurt done to Hisana – was he about to go to _all _the noble families and charm their daughters? Entice them with pretty silks and rendezvouses by moonlight only to send them in heartbroken sulks back to their fathers?

Sakudo shook his head. _Now _he was being dramatic.

Upon a sigh, Narime broke her silence. "I hope that whatever happened isn't as serious as all this."

"Did you not see Kiyuku? She looked like she had no bones in her body," Sakudo said, miserable enough to be speaking about an abandoned kitten. "I would say that whatever's going on, it's serious."

"She tends to be dramatic," Narime half-smirked. "Remember. It runs in the family."

"She overreacted this evening. But she's not being dramatic."

Another sigh. "Yes, I know. I was only humoring myself."

For some more hushed moments, they sipped at their sake. Unspoken words hung between them, the ghostly presence of Kiyuku's sorrow a colourless weight.

A parent forgets the sting of their child's first heartbreak – like birth, only much less rewarding. Sakudo tried to recall the misery of his other daughters, to comfort himself with the knowledge that Kiyuku would move on and that she would be alright. That this wasn't the end of the world. He couldn't. Just as dark as it must have seemed for Kiyuku, it seemed so for him.

"You should go see her in the morning."

Sakudo hummed. "Somehow, I'm not so sure she'll want to see me."

"She will," Narime smiled more genuinely, lifting her fingers to Sakudo's cheek. "She needs to be reminded that there's one man who will always love her."

"You think?"

"I know."

So that was what he did. In the morning, Sakudo rose before the sun and set about preparing a small gift for Kiyuku – even to visit his daughter, it felt wrong to show up empty-handed. On his finest paper, he sketched flowers. There were none in the garden this time of year, their faces closed off to the impending snow, and his artistic abilities were perhaps not so finely tuned as he would have liked. Nonetheless, at least he could put together a magnificent bouquet. Butterfly-faced orchids, magnolias, tulips: beauty and strength, dignity, love. An arrangement he hoped his daughter would understand. She'd always liked metaphors and symbolism. For quite the same reason, Sakudo steered clear of camellias and sakura.

By the time he was finished, Narime had already eaten breakfast and it was nearly the hour for morning tea. He didn't pause to join her. Having rolled the sketch into a tidy scroll, tied with a ribbon of pink silk, he set off on the long walk to his daughter's barracks. Only halfway did his stomach begin to retaliate for his lack of a meal.

The lieutenant greeted him – a girl perhaps only slightly younger than Kiyuku, and even sweeter. She seemed excited to meet him.

"Taichou speaks about her family often. I'm sure she'll be thrilled to see you, Aramiya-sama," the lieutenant said. "She's been out of sorts lately."

To which Sakudo only hummed his acknowledgement. Thanking the lieutenant – Hinamori, he should say – he went on past her to his daughter's office.

Until just recently, Kiyuku's position had been an abstraction. Wonderful, of course, and Sakudo was marvelously pleased for her, but he hadn't fully grasped the gravity of it. When he'd received word that she'd been injured in the zanpakuto rebellion, it had become rather more real; even then though, seeing her fragile and helpless in the hospital bed, he couldn't look past the familiar face of his little girl. She was his little girl. Not really a captain.

He pushed open the office door. Stepped into a room of meticulously ordered folders and paperwork. From a desk much too large for her, too heavily piled with documents and tea cups, Kiyuku lifted her head and stared for a moment.

"Papa?" she chimed. "What are you doing here?"

Sakudo smiled, closing the door behind him. "Well, good morning to you too."

Kiyuku blushed. "Good morning."

Impossible to deny it. The haori suited her well. She looked so sure and grown up – despite the tired grey of her eyes, the greasy bun in which her hair had been tied, she looked the part of a captain. Seeing her so, enclosed within a natural habitat of administration and official business, Sakudo felt himself grow swollen with pride.

"Is everything alright?" Kiyuku questioned, and she sounded more unsure of herself than of him.

"Of course. May I sit? I won't keep you long."

She nodded, biting her lip. They each took a seat and she offered him tea and cookies, waited for him to speak again.

The slowness with which she moved, the strain with which she kept her gaze from him, as though he were a threat – the pride in Sakudo's chest deflated and shattered into heartbreak.

Placing down the rolled-up sketch, which Kiyuku eyed suspiciously, he touched her hand. "Kuku, I must apologise for last night…"

"It was my fault," she said with practiced speed, sending another sharp ache through Sakudo's lungs. "I deserved it."

"We were both in the wrong," Sakudo shook his head. "I should have treated you with more gentleness, shouldn't have pushed you to answer questions you weren't ready to answer. More than that, I shouldn't have lashed out as I did."

Kiyuku, shoulders rising in a tense line along her neck, said nothing.

With his free hand, Sakudo pushed the sketch towards her. "Not to buy your forgiveness, but I do hope this makes things a little bit better."

Adroitly, Kiyuku removed the ribbon and opened the scroll. She blinked at it once, twice again, and it was impossible to say what she was feeling. Then however, to Sakudo's fright, a watery mass began to well in her eyes. Her little lips trembled, the fine lump in her throat bobbing harshly as she swallowed against air. Sakudo held his breath, resisted the urge to launch himself over the table and take her in his arms. Kiyuku – his stubborn, strong baby – hadn't cried since she was a little girl.

When she spoke, her voice was a weak and dying bell. "It's beautiful. Thank you."

"Specially done for you, my sweetest." To his own ears, Sakudo himself sounded shaky, and he hoped Kiyuku couldn't hear his anguish. "Whenever you're ready, I'll be here."

His words seemed not to faze her. For some long moments, she gazed in unyielding silence at the sketch, though there didn't seem to be anything reflected in the dullness of her eyes. Sakudo didn't know what to do – whether to stay or leave, whether to touch her or keep his hands to himself; for all he knew, anything would have cracked the fine flesh she tried so hard to toughen.

"Daddy…"

"Yes?"

At last, she looked at him, and her features melted into a dewy, despairing vulnerability.

"I told Byakuya I love him." Her voice cracked – and she began to cry.

Sakudo had nothing to say. Or, he did, but not to Kiyuku. An angry heat rose through his neck at the mention of Byakuya's name. Taking the sketch from Kiyuku and setting it aside, Sakudo cocooned his daughter's hands in his, watching her tiny frame tremble against the sobs she couldn't hold back.

"I'm so…" she sniffed, and her shoulders shook. "So _stupid_." Leaned forward onto her elbows. "I ruined everything."

Sakudo was about to run his hand along her hair, but when he considered again how dirty it was he decided against it. Instead, he traced his thumbs along her knuckles. "You love him," he repeated, as much for her as for himself. He'd known it. Only couldn't accept it.

"But he doesn't love me," Kiyuku whimpered.

"Did he say so?"

"Yes."

The bastard. Blind, dumb, foolish, stupid bastard.

Sakudo inhaled sharply, squeezing Kiyuku's hands. "I will have him castrated by order of the Central 46, if you'd like."

A teary, fleeting giggle, warming like spirits. "That would be nice," Kiyuku murmured. Then, more seriously, she said, "I just… I don't know… I think I thought that he'd…"

"He would – what?"

Tears beginning to cease, Kiyuku looked to him once again with sad, disappointed eyes. "I thought he loved me back."

_He had everyone fooled, Kuku-chan_, Sakudo wanted to say. More than that though, he wanted to march to Kuchiki Manor and do – something. What, he wasn't sure. Beat some sense into Byakuya, perhaps. Set forth a dismayed barrage of words over Sōjun's grave about the idiot he'd managed to raise. Curse Hisana into greater deadness. None of it particularly satisfying, all of it doing nothing to alleviate the misery that had set its sights on his girl.

"It must be very difficult for Byakuya," Sakudo said, scowling more than he would have liked and not entirely believing himself.

Kiyuku didn't seem to notice, staring blearily at her hands. "Yes," she agreed, seeming as though she wanted to say more. She looked to be chewing on her words, swirling them around her mouth to test their taste. After a moment, she sighed with tremoring grief. "I wish I were Hisana."

"Good heavens, no," Sakudo spluttered. "I like Kiyuku much more."

"But Byakuya doesn't."

"There are other, much less stupid men out there that will love you."

Kiyuku frowned dramatically, looking disgusted behind her remaining tears. "But I won't love other men."

This was the argument of young love. There would be no point in contradicting her, Sakudo knew – and somewhere within him, he also had a terrible feeling that she was right. Kiyuku was not a creature of half-measures. She was all-or-nothing, black-or-white. For her heart to have been taken and broken like this was not a matter she would not adjust gently to. Frankly, with a certain amount of fatherly knowing, Sakudo felt sure that this was the end for her. Without even the courtesy of being able to call if a self-fulfilling prophecy, her age-old point about love had been proven right: _it's sadistic_, she'd always said, _it's debilitating and takes no survivors. _

Sakudo stood from his chair, putting his arms out to her. "Come here, you."

In an elegant flutter, Kiyuku rose and rounded her desk, burying her teeny self against her father's chest. Even Shinigami needed hugs sometimes. Even big, strong captains needed their dads. Sakudo smiled at the thought, flattening his palm between Kiyuku's sharp shoulder blades. For all her strength and dignity, she was still the littlest of his little girls.

"Now," he said, eying out the dirty slick of her hair. "Act like the lady you are and go take a shower."


	56. Friend

Chapter 56  
Friend

(3 Months Later)

"Hinamori, have you seen my zanpakuto?"

Leaning against her desk, exasperated after having done a cursory and fruitless search of the office, Kiyuku watched as Hinamori slipped folders back into their shelves. Pausing for a moment, bringing her hand to her cheek in a thoughtful expression, Hinamori shook her head.

"No," she said with regret. "Sorry, taichou – is it not still in your private quarters?"

"I definitely brought it here with me."

"And you couldn't have misplaced it…"

"No. I don't misplace things."

Both of them hummed confoundedly.

There was supposed to be a mission that afternoon to the outer Seireitei. Nothing particularly serious – there was some strange activity that needed checking out and the area happened to be under the fifth squad's jurisdiction. Kiyuku had planned to head it but if her mysteriously vanishing zanpakuto continued to be mysteriously-vanished Hinamori would have to take over. Kiyuku informed her of this with an apology; the lieutenant didn't seem to mind.

Indeed, Kiyuku remembered having brought her zanpakuto to the office. More than that, she'd definitely placed it in its usual spot against her desk. If it was someone's – and Kiyuku's mind immediately went to Kusajishi Yachiru – idea of a prank, they wouldn't be prepared for what was coming to them.

Scowling, flicking closed the file on her desk, Kiyuku made for the door. "I'm going to check in my private quarters," she told Hinamori, knowing for certain it wasn't there but going anyway. _Just in case_. "Feel free to leave if you're done before I get back."

"Thank you, taichou."

As much as it was inconveniencing, the walk was welcome. The late-morning was crisp and white with light, and the gardens had begun to colour with blossoms; over the last year, Kiyuku had seen to it that more flowers were planted – purple shades of lilacs and irises, the curious moss phlox, peonies. Now, compared to the measly lawn she'd come upon a year ago, the fifth squad boasted a treasure trove of colour and petals. Some of the officers had even taken to working outside and most enjoyed their teas and lunches amongst the delicately faced gems.

Their single cherry tree had already finished blooming, now a picture of fragile green leaves and dark bark. Most lamented the early fading of the flowers. Kiyuku was relieved.

The sakura were too heavily armed against her. To see them, relentlessly beautiful, had hurt her heart. Had set her body weak with longing aches.

They were gone now and she could almost breathe. Almost.

In her private quarters, she searched the lounge area first – not that there was much to search, of course. Peering under the couch, examining fiercely the top of the coffee table as though her sword could have embedded itself within the wood, she found nothing. Nothing in her sleeping quarters. Nothing in the washroom. There was no sense of panic as she went about this hunting, only a pugnacious annoyance. She affirmed herself continually – "I don't misplace things" – and concluded without much ado that it must have been taken.

Kiyuku stood in the center of the room, hands clinging to her hips as she scanned the nooks and crannies once more. Not on the shelves. Not beneath the couch's pillows. Nothing, nowhere…

A noise came from the kitchen. A hurried scuffling that made Kiyuku jump to attention. A rat? No, the noise was much too large. An intruder. Was this the thief?

"Who's there?" Kiyuku demanded.

No response, though Kiyuku could hear whisperings muddled into indistinct hisses. Hands at the ready, she went towards the source of the noise.

"Come out immediately," she insisted again. "Otherwise I will be forced to act."

"Just give it up," one voice muttered, though it didn't seem to be addressing her. "She's already got us."

"We can still get out the window!" came another.

Familiar, even in their frantic hush. Resonating with something deep and unspoken. It couldn't be. Breath catching at her disbelief, Kiyuku dropped her hands and rushed into the kitchen – and like two guilty children, the trespassers stared at her. She could only stare back. Clad in tangerine silk, the first of them was kneeling on the counters with his head and shoulders through the window, clearly trying to figure out how to fit the rest of his body through the small space. The other, wide-eyed and dismayed, stood utterly frozen, her arms cradling a collection of sweets and snacks.

As though a reflection of her own shocked expression, Mubōna and Yorokobi gawked at Kiyuku with hanging mouths.

"What – what are you…?"

Dropping the nearly-stolen goods in a flurry, Mubōna pointed an accusing finger at Yorokobi. Or, rather, at his tidily feminine backside. "He made me do it."

"Shut up, you little brat! You were just as hungry as I was," Yorokobi snapped, though he made no effort to withdraw from the window.

"I would never rob Kiyuku-sama."

"Says the one with all the food at her feet."

They continued to bicker, and Kiyuku watched with incredulity. They'd returned to her sword. After Muramasa's end, they were supposed to have dematerialized for good – although, then again, Kiyuku had thought the same thing after having defeated them during the rebellion. Did that mean they would be like this permanently? Appearing then disappearing only to reappear again at will? Kiyuku had questions and she hoped to avoid a trip to the twelfth squad for answers.

"What's going on?" she asked, more gently than before.

"Please accept our humblest apologies, Kiyuku-sama," Mubōna held her hands to her cheeks in charming shame. "We were both hungry, but couldn't venture to go to any of the teahouses…"

"We're hiding out, you see," Yorokobi added.

"Yes. We're hiding. So we came here to try and find something to eat. Yorokobi got carried away," Mubōna gestured to all the food at her feet, "and then tried to escape when you arrived. Then he got stuck like this in the window because his head is bigger than he thinks and…"

"No, that's not what I mean," Kiyuku interrupted. "Why are you materialized? I thought you'd gone back to being a sword."

"Oh."

"We've been able to materialize this whole time," Yorokobi explained casually, seeming to have gotten comfortable in his position. "We've just been discreet about it."

"We like to explore the Seireitei after you fall asleep."

Kiyuku's mind continued to reel. _All this time_. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Well…" Mubōna bit her lip.

"Because you would've made us work – and not the fun kind," Yorokobi said. "We're not into helping repair buildings and such like. But now that it's mainly paper work…"

"We'll be glad to help," Mubōna chimed.

At this, Kiyuku's brow furrowed. She would address the issue of teamwork later, if they planned to stick around. "What about the other zanpakuto?"

"They can all materialize as well."

"We like to hang out. Especially with Haineko and Ruriiro Kujaku."

"_You _like to 'hang out' with them." Mubōna's snootily curved nose crinkled. "Iprefer the more polite company."

"Oh blah." Yorokobi rolled his eyes at her. "_You_ run after Ashisogi Jizō like it's a puppy."

"It's cute."

"It's going to kill us all, if you're not careful."

"Okay!" Kiyuku cried, having heard enough name-dropping for one conversation. "Let's just get you out the window before you break it."

Yorokobi shot a poisonous look at her. "Are you calling me _fat_?"

Definitely not fat, but heavier than he looked. It was only after several minutes of pulling – as well as rubbing butter around the rim of the window – that Kiyuku and Mubōna managed to free Yorokobi from his entrapment. He fell backwards gracelessly, lithe limbs flailing, and looked embarrassed as he steadied himself.

Kiyuku made tea, set out some snacks to eat – and watched her zanpakuto with hawkish eyes as they put the rest of her stash back where it belonged.

Around the coffee table, her questions continued.

"You said you were hiding…" Kiyuku began, almost dreading an answer. They could have been hiding from the law. Maybe they'd committed a crime so heinous during the rebellion it was beyond forgiveness. A thousand terrible images scored Kiyuku's mind – imprisonment, execution, experimentation. She steeled herself for the worst, considering the best hiding spots across the Seireitei in which she could conceal her zanpakuto.

Like a tortured choir, the pair of them moaned theatrically.

"Don't even get us started," Yorokobi said, spreading himself across the couch in a luxurious show of weariness.

"We're trying to avoid Senbonzakura," Mubōna explained with a frown.

So not the law, then. Kiyuku was only half-relieved. If Senbonzakura was after them, it must have meant they'd done something ridiculous like injure the Kuchiki pride or kill all the Kuchiki koi. With such possibilities in mind, Kiyuku narrowed her eyes. "What did you do?"

"What do you mean 'what did we do'?" Yorokobi turned his head to pout at her. "_We _didn't do anything."

"Then why are you hiding from Senbonzakura?"

"He just won't leave us alone, Kiyuku-sama," Mubōna said, looking exasperated. "He keeps offering to take Yorokobi out for drinks."

"And he won't stop referring to Mubōna as his princess." Yorokobi pulled a disgusted expression.

"It is certainly a most horrendous nickname."

"And he always want to give us a tour of Kuchiki Manor. As though we actually care."

"_And_ I caught him trying to peak over the wall when I was having tea with Katen Kyōkotsu."

"I swear," Yorokobi groaned. "He's one weird jackass."

Mubōna nodded. "Quite."

Throughout their monologue-like exchange, Kiyuku felt her shoulders grow ever looser, felt her throat free itself from the iron grip of anticipation. By it all, Mubōna and Yorokobi looked so immensely vexed Kiyuku could have laughed. She very nearly did. "Sounds like he wants to be your friend."

"I'd rather eat shit from the eleventh squad's latrines," Yorokobi spat.

"I'd rather run through the streets naked," Mubōna added in turn.

"Senbonzakura would like that though."

"Just shut up."

Kiyuku sighed, shaking her head. "Give the guy a break."

"Never," Mubōna objected. "We cannot possibly forgive him after what his master did to you, Kiyuku-sama."

Yorokobi shot to sit, slicing his hand viciously through the air to slap the back of Mubōna's head. "Idiot!" he hissed. "We said we weren't going to talk about that!"

So they knew. They knew and yet had left her completely alone. Kiyuku stared at her zanpakuto in a sudden, dull silence. Inside of her, there seemed to be a million small cuts; new ones opened up daily – at the sight of sakura, certain tastes and smells; Kiyuku especially couldn't bear to look at the kimono, which lay now at the family manor somewhere at the back of a long-unused cupboard. Other cuts scabbed and scarred, no longer painful but always there. Three months felt like seconds and an eternity all at once. She missed him. She still loved him.

Mubōna and Yorokobi had known and did nothing. Not that they could have done anything – but they hadn't even tried.

"You shouldn't bother about what happened between Byakuya and me," Kiyuku said at last, perhaps more sarcastically than she would have liked. "If Senbonzakura is trying hard to be your friend, then just let him be your friend."

Standing from her seat, unfazed by the tea cups and crumbs across her coffee table, Kiyuku turned to make for the door.

Mubōna's chime-like voice just about cried out from behind her, "Where are you going, Kiyuku-sama?"

"I have work to do," Kiyuku said, looking back to the pair once more. At this point, she'd figured they were responsible for her missing sword. "Speaking of which, there is a mission this afternoon. I expect you both to be at my office after lunch. And bring back my sword."

Yorokobi hopped up from the couch, dismayed. "We can't. There's a sakura viewing at Kuchiki Manor that we were planning to go to…"

"I don't care," Kiyuku snapped. "You can go after the mission."

"But…"

Kiyuku slammed the door behind her before either of them could say anymore.

Back at the office, Hinamori was waiting outside. Leaning against the wall, tapping her feet to an unheard melody, she looked like she'd been there long – though Kiyuku was sure she'd given her permission to leave when the filing was finished. It was almost lunchtime. Hinamori usually met one or two of the other lieutenants at a teahouse or in one of the break rooms; she should already have been on her way there, should have been long gone. Kiyuku had expected to be alone – no, she _wanted_ to be alone. Why Hinamori would thwart her like this, she couldn't decide.

The lieutenant was generally the last person to irritate Kiyuku: she was much too obliging, much too harmless and sweet for that. However, though Kiyuku knew the foul mood she'd slipped into like a sock was no fault of Hinamori's, she had to bite down against a sour frustration at the unexpected presence.

When Hinamori spotted Kiyuku, she leapt to attention, blocking the door.

"I did excuse you earlier, didn't I?" Kiyuku questioned upon reaching the office.

"You did, taichou, and I'll be leaving right away," Hinamori smiled nervously. "I just – well – there's something in your office. Don't freak out when you see it."

At this, Kiyuku raised her eyebrows. "I don't think anything could be so bad that you'd need to keep an eye on me."

"It's not bad. It's just…" Hinamori struggled with the words. "You'll have to see."

She opened the door. Kiyuku stepped in.

An immense bouquet was placed on her desk, one of marvelous and glittering sakura in a crystal vase. Kiyuku's heart did an awful jump and she felt as though she'd been impaled. Another prank – one much crueler and much more cunningly thought out than a missing zanpakuto. Stepping towards it as one would toward an alien creature, Kiyuku could see the delicate shades of the flowers, their blushingly darkened centers and stamens. She considered it, ready to throw the pink arrangement from her desk. "Who sent this?"

Hinamori answered. Kiyuku turned to stare at her – there was no way she'd heard right.

"Who?"

"Kuchiki-taichou did."

She felt parched, the innards of her throat sticky and dry. "Why?"

Hinamori continued to smile – or rather, her mouth was in a slanted line that peaked and fell in odd places. "He said it was to say congratulations, taichou. For your anniversary as captain."

"My what?"

"You've been a captain for one year today."

One year. It had been one year to-the-day and amongst everything that was going on, Kiyuku had forgotten. She'd forgotten and felt ashamed of herself. Ashamed, and immensely sad. Perhaps even angry. It was no big deal – things had been overwhelming; she'd been busy – but she felt her head grow heavy with the urge to sob. This was what she'd wanted for as long as she could remember. The white haori and a lieutenant and her own office. It was to this that she'd dedicated her youth, for the cause of captaincy that she'd suffered homesickness and injuries and friendless nights.

Now she had it.

And she'd forgotten it.

Because of Byakuya.

"Taichou…" Hinamori's bell-like voice echoed between Kiyuku's ears. "Kuchiki-taichou also wanted to know if you'd be going to the sakura viewing this afternoon. I did tell him you were busy, but if you'd like to, I could–"

"No," Kiyuku droned. "I won't be going."

A pregnant pause.

Then Hinamori spoke again. "I know this is none of my business – please forgive me if I cross any lines, taichou – but you've been hurting so much the last few months," she said with shatteringly genuine care. "Wouldn't you like to see Kuchiki-taichou? These flowers… I don't know what really happened, but whatever it was, I think he'd still like to be your friend."

_Friend_. The irony was not lost on Kiyuku. Only minutes ago did she tell her zanpakuto to suck it up and be Senbonzakura's _friend_. As though it were that easy, as though it were a choice.

Lifting her gaze from the sakura, Kiyuku rounded her desk to sit. Paperwork. Poetry. Bash her head against the varnished wood. Anything. Anything but think about it. She should have counted herself lucky: Byakuya didn't love her back, but he still wanted to be her friend. She could still have him in her life. That was more than what most people would be left with – yet, somehow, she didn't feel lucky. It was not luck to shatter at the mention of his name, let alone to die internally at the mere thought of him.

Three months. It was ridiculous that this was how it was after _three months_. She'd gotten better at ignoring it, drowning it out and carrying on. All she had to do was sever any piece of him from herself. Acquaintances. Strangers. They'd never shared bananas and chocolate, never grazed each other's fingers in the beach sand, never kissed nor touched, never muttered secrets in low and guilty voices.

Kiyuku could only breathe if she was nothing to him. She was not ready to be his friend.

Not meeting Hinamori's eye nor looking back at the flowers, Kiyuku seated herself and opened the folder she'd been busy with earlier.

"Hinamori."

"Yes, taichou?"

"Dispose of these flowers."

The distraught gasp from her lieutenant sent a diabolical ire through Kiyuku's skull.

"But taichou! You can't just throw them away."

She felt herself seethe. "Then put them in the break room or give them to one of your friends or _something_. Just get them out of my sight."

"But…"

"That's an order. You are dismissed."

With movements so hesitant and regretful, Hinamori looked as though she would drop the vase – and if she did, Kiyuku would probably have cracked like its crystal, right then and there without any hope of containing herself. But no. In scolded silence, Hinamori maneuvered the glistening bouquet to the door and out. Away to do away with the friendly gift. To remove it from Kiyuku's safe sphere of friendlessness.

Hands numb and trembling, Kiyuku tried to write and failed. She tried to read over the rest of the file but her vision blurred with the saline haze of tears.

She brought her palms to her eyes and cried. For what seemed like the thousandth time in the last three months, Kiyuku cried and cried and choked back the yearning for Byakuya's arms.


	57. Fruitless Attempts

Chapter 57  
Fruitless Attempts

They ended up not going to the sakura viewing. As it turned out, rogue zanpakuto were appearing around the Seireitei and the previous day's mission had turned into a smack-down – and Mubōna and Yorokobi, though they'd been half-looking forward to the sakura, hadn't minded this so much. Better still, with Kiyuku having gone to see the twelfth squad about the rogue swords, she'd left them with a hefty amount of paperwork to complete that morning.

Brushes ever pointed at the ready, hands nimble and eager, Mubōna and Yorokobi dug into the documents with glee.

They both _loved_ paperwork. Nearly as much as Mubōna loved small, cute things and as Yorokobi loved insulting people.

Indeed, they carried out their duties with meticulous passion, writing out reports that were sure to thrill and signing their names with much-practiced flourishes. Like their master, they colour-coded and alphabetized and triple-checked. They worked quickly and efficiently, reaching at randomized moments for the snacks to which they had helped themselves.

It hadn't been much more than an hour when there was a sharp knocking from the door, the holy peace of their focus shattered.

Mubōna and Yorokobi, freezing, looked at each other with horror.

Kiyuku wasn't going to be back for another while; she had cancelled all the morning's arrangements. No one would've been looking for her now – which could only mean it was for them. And who else would the knocker be besides…

_Knock, knock, __**knock**__.___

"It's Senbonzakura," Mubōna whispered with agitated urgency.

Yorokobi grimaced, thinking back to the incensed promises they'd made to be at the sakura viewing. "I knew he would be on our back for not going yesterday."

"What do we do?"

"Just keep quiet. He'll go away."

He didn't. Continued to knock and knock and _knockknockknock_. He knew they were inside. There would be no stopping the relentless idiot.

"Oh, for crying out loud…" Yorokobi ran his palms down his cheeks.

"Go answer it," Mubōna commanded. "Find out what he wants and then tell him to leave us alone."

Scowling, Yorokobi shook his head. "No, you go."

"You."

"_You_."

As much of a nuisance as Senbonzakura was, neither Mubōna nor Yorokobi actually had the heart to dismiss him outright. All along, they'd just hoped he would get the message and eventually move on to another victim – Zabimaru, maybe, or even his precious Sode No Shirayuki. Apparently not. He was still after them like a dog in heat.

Yorokobi stood from the desk with a relenting huff. "Fine," he snapped. "I'll do it _this time_."

Spine straight in sharp deportment, he marched across the office with resolve that would surely dwindle by the time he reached the door. His ears were hot, features tightly wound. Mubōna watched her counterpart psyche himself up, uncharacteristically subtle while he did so.

The door opened. Yorokobi stood staring – where Senbonzakura's face should have been, there was nothing.

A weird noise escaped his mouth. Something between a confounded wheeze and an irritated groan. Maybe it hadn't been Senbonzakura after all. Yorokobi was about to lean out, look around for their vanishing visitor, when a high-pitched squeak forced his attention downwards.

"Oh," he said, disappointed after having braced himself for the worst. "What do you want, Ashisogi Jizō?"

Having been addressed by name, the freakish little hybrid cocked its head to the side and cooed with high-pitched questioning. A motion reminiscent of the creature's clown-faced master. For some moments, Yorokobi stared into the milky orbs that were its eyes – a blank, unsettling gaze. One which was unfailingly creepy to everyone.

Everyone, that is, except Mubōna. Yorokobi could hear her jump up from her place at the table, crying with abnormal excitement at the mention of the creature's name, "Hello~!"

To which Ashisogi Jizō responded with an equally animated shriek, gliding past Yorokobi as though he himself were the insect. Turning to watch, Yorokobi felt his features drop into a curling mask of displeasure. Mubōna, on the other hand, greeted Ashisogi Jizō with a charmingly girlish grin.

"What did you bring today?" she questioned, her voice the same as one would use with a small child. Warm, vivacious, with an unusual glistening about her usually impassive eyes.

Wings billowing despite the lack of a breeze, Ashisogi Jizō thrust its chubby hands into its robes, rummaging about for some moments before pulling out an offering for Mubōna. A rich, red sphere – the creature held out the item as though it were a precious treasure. A prize. A jewel. An apple. Mubōna gasped exaggeratedly, wrapping her hands around the fruit with the utmost gentleness, making Ashisogi Jizō bustle in babyish delight.

This was a ritual that had seemingly developed between them. The thing brought fruits of all descriptions – where the hell it managed to find such a variety, Yorokobi had yet to figure out – and presented it to Mubōna with pride. In return, she would squeeze its chubby hands or kiss its cheek. This time round, it appeared to be the latter, Ashisogi Jizō angling its fat face towards her with a finger pointed towards its cheek. Mubōna obliged with pleasure. Yorokobi almost gagged.

"You are so _weird_, do you know that?" he droned.

"Kiyuku-sama likes babies," Mubōna retorted with an unfazed shrug. "I can't help that I do too."

Yorokobi shook his head. "But that thing isn't even a baby…"

Ashisogi Jizō gave an incensed squeal, looking at Yorokobi with what could only be described as a glare. It shook its head at him and then, like a wounded infant turning to its mother, wrapped its arms around Mubōna's torso. A possessive gesture. An 'I'll-show-you' kind of hug. In quite the same way, Mubōna's hands pressed themselves protectively against Ashisogi Jizō.

"He's _my _baby," she insisted.

Yorokobi scoffed. He began to roll his eyes – but only managed to do so halfway before another, deep voice appeared behind him.

"I'd like to be your baby too."

Whether from the shock of the voice or the disturbing words, Yorokobi jumped away from the door with a yelp. "Don't _ever_ say something like that again!" he exclaimed, revolted.

Senbonzakura, arms folded across his chest, seemed to ignore Yorokobi. Instead, he stared hard at the office-scene before him: a perfectly quaint picture of furniture and orchids and a girl clutching her floating, gold baby-insect-thing. There was a prickling blackness about his aura, a sullen cloud of hostility. Yorokobi realised he was jealous.

"I could bring you much better fruits than this creature can," Senbonzakura declared with pomp. "Exotic kiwis and pomegranates! Marvelous bananas! Much more than that simple apple…"

Dismayed, Ashisogi Jizō shrieked, wings battering against themselves. Mubōna narrowed her eyes at Senbonzakura and said coldly, "We don't need _your _fruits."

"Although," Yorokobi smirked. "We could deal with diamonds."

"Diamonds then!" Senbonzakura declared again.

"Also rubies."

"Anything for you, my friend!"

"No," Mubōna insisted. "No fruit and no jewels, either."

Yorokobi, trusting that Senbonzakura actually would have showered them in diamonds and rubies – how he would get hold of them, that wasn't Yorokobi's problem – shot Mubōna a silencing look.

"Then tell me what I can do for you, my princess," Senbonzakura just about pleaded.

Mubōna only shook her head, sighing. "Why are you here, Senbonzakura?"

"Ah! Yes," he said, forgetting about the fruit and jewels. "Why did neither of you come to join me at the sakura viewing yesterday?"

"We had obligations," Mubōna explained simply.

"Kiyuku-chan dragged us on a mission," Yorokobi shrugged. "Got stuck fighting some rogue zanpakuto."

"Ah, yes! The Beast Swords."

"What?" Mubōna and Yorokobi questioned together.

"There was an attack at my master's manor yesterday during the sakura viewing. I escorted Byakuya-sama, along with Kuchiki Rukia and your master, to the twelfth squad's barracks to gather information about the perpetrators… Speaking of which. Ashisogi Jizō, your master was looking for you."

Releasing Mubōna with a rumbling squeak, Ashisogi Jizō tensed up and went wide-eyed. It fluttered around Mubōna once, twice again, then disappeared in a swift glide out the door and down the corridor. As weirded out by the thing as Yorokobi was, he couldn't help but feel sorry for it. The traumas and tortures at the hands of that wickedly unstylish Kurostuchi Mayuri, beyond comprehension to someone like Yorokobi, must have been horrendously unbearable for the little zanpakuto.

Shaking off the thought, Yorokobi returned to listening to Senbonzakura.

However, upon doing so, he suddenly went stiff. "You said Byakuya went with Kiyuku-chan?"

"Correct."

Yorokobi glanced at Mubōna, who looked back at him with a bristle beneath her cool features.

The last few months had been hell for Kiyuku. The mere thought of Kuchiki Byakuya was too much for her, let alone actually having to see him – which was why, without Kiyuku's knowing, Mubōna and Yorokobi had done everything in their power to keep her mind off the prideful dick. As a zanpakuto, they refused to speak about him. In a materialized form, they orchestrated small and pleasant things to keep her busy: new flowers in the garden, incorrectly organised paperwork, the occasional walk with Kyoraku-taichou (Katen Kyōkotsu had helped with this last one). They didn't think she would really have wanted to see them – a constant presence was the last thing she'd wanted – so they'd been as discrete as possible about it all.

They were not a zanpakuto that was prone to hating anyone. But they'd made an exception. For causing Kiyuku such pain, for being too blind to see in her what they themselves saw, Mubōna and Yorokobi chose to hate Kuchiki Byakuya.

They didn't necessarily hate Senbonzakura though. As annoying as he was, they could possibly have gone so far as to like him. However, as an indirect accomplice in Kiyuku's suffering – whether it was by his own choice or not, it didn't matter – they simply couldn't allow themselves to be so charmed. To fall trap to all his extravagant antics and valiant attempts at friendship.

With an understanding between them, Mubōna went back to her table of paperwork. She knew what she had to do. Yorokobi knew it too.

She picked up her ink pot, holding it deftly between her fingers as she looked longingly at the pile of documents she and Yorokobi had worked so hard to compile. Then, with a pained sigh, she turned it and let the ink spill over the colour-coded, alphabetized, triple-checked papers.

Senbonzakura just about jumped. "What on earth are you doing!?"

"Oh, would you look at that…" Yorokobi said flatly. "What a mess we've made, Mubōna."

"Indeed, Yorokobi. How dreadful that we don't know how to clean it up ourselves."

"Never fear! I can help you with that," Senbonzakura decreed in turn.

But they ignored him.

"Guess we'll just have to go find Kiyuku-chan. She'll know what to do."

"How right you are."

"Sorry to cut this visit short, Senbonzakura," Yorokobi smiled at him, amused by the confusion that shone through his mask. "But we can be so clumsy."

"And this is a most urgent mess we've made," Mubōna added. "We must hurry off."

"Bye-bye now!"

And with that, shutting the door behind them and leaving Senbonzakura in a state of bafflement, Mubōna and Yorokobi sprinted off to rescue Kiyuku from Byakuya's clutches.


	58. The Heart

Chapter 58  
The Heart

Distance made the heart grow fonder.

Byakuya had fully expected to miss her – had known without a doubt that it would be difficult – but he hadn't prepared himself for pain like a knife-wound. The kind that left him gasping, clutching at his chest, dizzyingly over-aware of her_, _her, her. It was a very different ache to grieving. Much sharper. Much more clear-minded. It was the distilled torture of knowing that they weren't together when they so easily could've been; Kiyuku loved him and he loved her. Fuck, he loved her. It should have been so simple. But he couldn't love her properly and they weren't together and it was his fault. It was _all his fault_.

And now she was ignoring him.

Whether she'd gotten better at hiding her feelings or had simply moved on, Byakuya couldn't tell. Before, he'd always been able to see it in her eyes. Kiyuku would look at him and he'd know – she was still hurting, she still felt the same. The past few weeks however, she'd been absolutely cold. Indifferent. This was what he'd planned, of course: to break her heart so that she would move on to something better, something that wasn't him. He'd brought this completely on himself.

So it shouldn't have sent concentrated anguish through his bones when she refused to meet his eye. Shouldn't have made him want to squirm when she addressed him with formal stoniness or want to die whenever she flinched away from him, as though he were a disease.

He shouldn't have been shocked – or was it hurt? – by the fact that she'd thrown away the bouquet of sakura he'd sent the previous day.

But it did and he was, and Byakuya spent the entirety of the meeting with Kurostuchi glancing at Kiyuku. Solemn and faraway. Beautiful.

Distance made the heart grow fonder. But it also made the man irritable and obsessive. Byakuya realised he needed her – one way or another, he needed to see her and speak to her and be more than simply a stranger. Selfish, he knew, but it seemed the only way to settle and refocus. And after all, if she'd moved on, there would be no harm in trying to be friendly at the very least.

After the meeting, Byakuya swiftly dismissed Senbonzakura and Rukia. Sometime later, he managed to find Kiyuku on a walk to one of the teahouses.

When he said her name, she looked back and seemed surprised.

"Have you been running?" she asked, eying him out suspiciously.

Heart pounding in his ears, pretending not to be out of breath – because of course he'd been running – Byakuya replied, "Not at all. It's only rather hot today."

Kiyuku raised an eyebrow. "I see."

"How are you?"

"Fine," she said, and it sounded like a question.

"Congratulations on your one-year."

Her cheeks went pink, stunningly so. Byakuya wanted very badly to feel their warmth within his palms.

"Thank you. It's kind of you to remember." She didn't mention the flowers.

A silence. Shattering and strange. Not so long ago, such a pause would have been comfortable, even welcome – and in it, he would probably have kissed her. Tangling her hair in his fingers, pulling her body possessively against his while tasting her tongue, he would have kissed her like his life depended on it. The thought fastened itself at the back of Byakuya's mind.

"Do you have time to meet with me later?" he asked at last. Kiyuku's features tightened in uncertainty and he added hastily, "There are some matters that we ought to discuss. These supposed Beast Swords, for one." He would figure out other captain-related issues at a later stage.

Kiyuku hummed, face remaining in a closed and lovely mask. "I suppose you could come by my office this evening."

"I was actually thinking you might join me for dinner."

She blinked up at him. "Sorry?"

"Dinner," Byakuya said again, feeling ridiculous. What he hoped to achieve, he didn't know. That he was only setting things up to have their hearts torn further – well, that was obvious, but he couldn't stop now.

"Oh," Kiyuku looked away from him, fingers beginning to dance at her sides. Scratching in her palm, touching her haori. "I – umm – I don't…"

"Please, Kiyuku. Come."

Lifting her head back up to look at him, there was for the first time in weeks a crack about the blues of her eyes. Byakuya didn't breathe. She parted her lips to speak and managed to eke out a strained and hesitant sound. Only before she could form any words, her gaze fell past Byakuya's shoulder and he heard a commotion coming towards them.

"Kiyuku-chan! We've done something terrible!"

"It's dreadful!"

Feeling his jaw clench, the corner of his mouth doing an agitated jump, Byakuya turned to watch Kiyuku's zanpakuto approach. As he did so, he noticed their eyes cross over him in a slithering glare. Not bothering to stop himself, he glared back. They were interrupting and they knew it – Byakuya could see so in the exaggeration with which the boy stepped between himself and Kiyuku and in the protectiveness with which the girl clutched Kiyuku's hand.

"What happened?" Kiyuku questioned, suddenly alarmed.

"We spilled ink _everywhere_," the boy declared.

"All over our paperwork and the floor," the girl inserted.

Glancing between them, seeming to forget for some moments that Byakuya was there – at which he felt himself bristle – Kiyuku narrowed her eyes at her zanpakuto. "Did you clean it up?"

"What do you think we are? _Servants_?" the boy, with vexing dramatics, stared at her brazenly. "We don't know how to clean ink!"

"You must come help us, Kiyuku-sama," the girl tugged Kiyuku's arm. "Please do hurry."

With an irritated sigh, Kiyuku shook her head. Then she looked to Byakuya again. "I don't think dinner will be possible. Come to my office tonight if you–"

"Nevermind," Byakuya interrupted, shutting his eyes lightly so as to not look at the impudent faces of her zanpakuto. "It was nothing important."

Silence once more. He could feel Kiyuku's gaze on him and humored himself by believing that she was perhaps slightly disappointed. The two zanpakuto hassled her again. He wanted to wring their necks – and then Kiyuku said goodbye, leaving Byakuya behind in a dissatisfied and empty melancholy. Chest having clawed itself open, his heart seemed to crawl across the ground after her.

Indeed, distance made the heart grow fonder. It also made him desperately miserable. Enough so that he woke up that night, for what seemed to be the hundredth time in the last months, in a sweating, impatient state. His dreams were distressingly abstract yet somehow always left him feeling full and sensitive beneath the weight of his yukata. Kiyuku plagued him in the darkness: the soft intonations of her voice, the shape of her fingers. Despite the distance, it was so very easy to imagine her into the futon beside him, where he could kiss and touch her freely as though she were his and he hers. How easy it was. How easy and damning.

Limbs numb and trembling all over, Byakuya rolled from the bed and went to the washroom. Silently, guiltily, he tried hard to think about nothing at all as he grasped at himself – to get the job done quickly and find absent-minded release. Not possible. He thought of Hisana and it just didn't feel right. Impersonal. False. Like images of soggy towels or childhood portraits: thoroughly platonic and unappetizing.

No matter how he struggled against it, Byakuya's mind returned constantly to Kiyuku. Always Kiyuku. Only Kiyuku. To the constellation of moles along her back and the fine dips of her collar bones. To his name on her lips and the parts of her he had never seen nor touched – what it would be like to do so. Sighs and moans. Hers and his own. And as Byakuya gasped, shuddering against the voracious convulsions that set his spine alight, it felt so good he could have cried. Certainly, he could have marched across the streets of Seireitei half-naked with a fuzzed clarity of mind to take Kiyuku in his arms and make love to her and ask her to be his wife.

Then Byakuya sank to his knees. In the middle of the washroom, hand sticky and wet, the moment drained out from his veins like a dying breath.

Distance made the heart grow fonder.

Byakuya wished it would make his heart forget.


	59. Katen

Chapter 59  
Katen

Of all the zanpakuto, Yorokobi and Mubōna were Katen's personal favourites. Perhaps because they were the only ones who visited her – the other zanpakuto either didn't share in her more refined tastes or were, apparently, too afraid. Not that Katen was particularly bothered by this. On the contrary, she preferred to maintain intimate and exclusive circles, with Mubōna and Yorokobi being exactly the type of company she liked to keep: cultured and charming. Pretty too, like butterflies. They were well-suited to her aesthetics and made for lovely ornaments upon her blanket.

On Kiyuku's day off, they joined her under the plum tree for sake and shamisen. It had come as a surprise that they didn't know how to play the instrument and Katen had been more than happy to teach them – or, at least, to teach Mubōna, who was an eager learner and picked up the skill quickly. Yorokobi, on the other hand, was more inclined to simply listen and watch, as he did so now.

Spread slovenly across the blanket, sake cup in hand, he glanced between Mubōna's strumming fingers and the darkened leaves of the plum tree. A delightful sigh ghosted itself from his lips, making the pristine plane of his chest rise and fall.

Katen smiled. "Is something the matter?"

With a shrug, Yorokobi rolled onto his side. His kimono fell delicately about his tulip-stem limbs, feet poking out from the tangerine silk – despite always being barefoot, the flesh of both his and Mubōna's soles remained soft as lily petals and just as white. Katen pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth in envy.

"Senbonzakura's been bugging me," Yorokobi said, pouting.

Mubōna strummed an incorrect note and huffed quietly. Shifting upon her knees, readjusting her grasp on the shamisen, she started the song from the beginning and seemed to ignore the conversation.

"He's always bugging everyone," Katen cooed.

Yorokobi took a deep sip from his sake. "I don't mean it like that."

His voice, an alto bell, was peculiar and absorbed. It lacked its usual fragrance, too far-off upon a boyish cloud to be bothered with stylish intonations. He crossed one leg over the other, bounced his foot absent-mindedly. Katen took the sake bottle from its place and refilled Yorokobi's cup – then, adoringly, she combed her fingers through his hair. Silkier than a kimono, longer than her own. She began to braid it and he didn't mind.

"Kiyuku-chan's been grumpy lately," Yorokobi continued to explain. "Grumpier than usual, at least. I'm pretty sure it's because Senbonzakura's always hanging around."

"And you think she's jealous?"

Another echoing error in Mubōna's music. The girl's lips pursed themselves into a tight, displeased line and she lowered the plectrum to her thigh.

"Oh?" Katen smiled. "Finished already, Mubō-chan?"

With silvery displeasure, Mubōna nodded curtly. "It's much nicer when you play, Katen-san."

"You're still learning."

"I don't like being a learner."

At this, Katen only chuckled before looking back to Yorokobi. Fingers moving smoothly amongst the platinum wisps of his hair, grazing his nape, Katen watched with mirth as his face flushed into sake-burned pinkness. "You were saying?" she hummed. "About Senbonzakura?"

"Er-right," Yorokobi cleared his throat. "_Senbonzakura…_"

Mubōna shuffled up close to Katen, having laid the shamisen upon the blanket and taken her own refill of sake. Deftly, with fairy-light lips, she sipped it. Like a doll – all porcelain and glittering monochrome. Katen imagined swiping the girl up and putting her on a shelf, boxed like a butterfly or encaged by crystal as a white magnolia.

"Kiyuku-sama is not jealous," Mubōna said simply. "She's confused. Senbonzakura is Kuchiki Byakuya's zanpakuto. He's been attentive towards us while his master has been heartless. It doesn't make sense."

"Exactly," Yorokobi frowned. "Kuchiki broke Kiyuku-chan's heart and yet Senbonzakura is trying like a fool to win over ours."

"He even made me this." Mubōna, letting the folds of her kimono sleeve slip back, lifted her wrist for Katen to see – indeed, wrapped around the dainty flesh and bone was a scarlet twine, strung with little flowers carved from wood.

Katen raised her eyebrows, amused. "Senbonzakura-dono _made _that for you?"

"Hand carved the flowers and everything. Mubōna feels bad not wearing it because he was so excited to give it to her," Yorokobi said, followed by a mutter. "I didn't get anything though."

"Hmm," Katen hummed, not resisting a grin. Mubōna wasn't the type to 'feel bad'; Yorokobi, perhaps, but certainly not his counterpart. There was no place for such sentiment in her pristine structures and sense: if she was wearing the bracelet, it meant she wanted to. Likewise, if Yorokobi had noticed the gesture, it meant he cared for it. They could deny it all as much as they wanted – Katen was no fool.

Bored now with Yorokobi's hair, she pressed her palms to his cheeks and leaned over him. Supine, Yorokobi stared up at her with wide, charming eyes.

"Remember, a zanpakuto is based on their master's soul," Katen said. "I think your friend's relentless attention says a lot about his master's feelings for Kiyuku-chan."

Mubōna came even closer, her shoulder delicately meeting Katen's bicep through the layers of their kimonos. How curious a scene it must have seemed: the three of them pressed together beneath a plum tree like children and their aunty. Their young and wise aunty, _of course_. Whatever would Senbonzakura think if he were to peak over the garden wall at them now? At this domesticated portrait with Mubōna and Yorokobi lulled into meekness by the afternoon light and sake. Indeed, it had a lot to do with the sake. Another smile curled itself into Katen's lips – usually, she would have found such a lightweight performance disappointing. However, Mubōna and Yorokobi were much too darling for that.

"That can't be right," Yorokobi contemplated aloud, though the sound of it was falser than plastic. "We don't particularly like Senbonzakura. Yet, Kiyuku-chan still adores Kuchiki."

"I think you do like Senbonzakura, actually." Katen tapped Yorokobi's nose.

"He can be charming," Mubōna conceded, sweetly and uninhibitedly leaning her head against Katen's shoulder. "In a most frustrating way."

"Of course."

Yorokobi's features crinkled in resistance. He crossed his arms over his chest with a tipsy flourish. "Charming's not the word I would have used."

"You're only jealous because you didn't get a friendship bracelet," Mubōna declared with dull frankness.

To which Yorokobi narrowed his eyes. "Why would I be jealous?" he purred. "After all, _I'm _the one who gets to go to the public baths with him."

"Oh my. "

"Yeah. He's actually pretty hot."

"I didn't realise you were that way inclined," Katen crooned, half-disappointed but otherwise entertained.

Yorokobi shrugged. "I'm not. Not necessarily. But I _can_ appreciate a finely chiseled ass when I see one."

"Don't speak about him like that!" Mubōna cried, jerking to sit upright. "It's so crude."

"Oh? _Now _who's the jealous one?"

The two of them bickered like upset finches, comparing their gifts and gestures from Senbonzakura – Mubōna had received an exotic fruit basket and Yorokobi a tourmaline comb from the Kuchiki jewels; they'd been promised poems and painted portraits; Senbonzakura had given Mubōna his word that he'd take off his mask in exchange for a kiss, which she was considering, and had told Yorokobi that he would insert heroic tales about 'Yorokobi, _the handsome and noble warrior_' into his master's official histories.

For a long time, Katen did not interrupt, instead pouring herself and them more sake while listening with growing amusement at the marvelously over-the-top promises that had been made. Eventually, she laughed, saying, "With all of that, I would have professed my affection to Senbonzakura long ago."

"No way," Yorokobi insisted.

"Charming as he may be, we still have our pride," Mubōna agreed.

"What does your pride have to do with this?"

"His master hurt and to a certain degree humiliated Kiyuku-sama. We cannot forgive that."

Katen touched a finger to her chin with a hum. "Have you considered asking Senbonzakura about it?"

"Asking him what _exactly_?" Yorokobi raised his eyebrows.

"How his master feels."

Both Mubōna and Yorokobi stared at her with incredulity, as though this were a most absurd suggestion. As though Kuchiki Byakuya couldn't possibly be anything but heartless. Katen sighed. When it came to matters of the heart, she was rarely wrong – she _was_ Kyoraku Shunsui's zanpakuto, after all – and she was certain now that there was more to the story than she'd been told. That Senbonzakura's overexcited pursuits were at the very least a decent indication of what was going on within his master.

In quite the same way, Mubōna and Yorokobi's attempts to deny their feelings for Senbonzakura were pretty much the same thing as what Kiyuku was doing with Kuchiki: swallowing the pain. _Pretending_. Ignoring the fact that Kuchiki Byakuya clearly couldn't stay away from her. Silly, smitten children.

Just like their zanpakuto.

"You know what I think?" Katen said fondly. "I think that if two souls can't stay away from each other, then they're not supposed to be apart."

She stroked Yorokobi's forehead with one hand, touched Mubōna's thigh with the other.

"Are you talking about us and Senbonzakura?"

"Or about Kiyuku-sama and Kuchiki Byakuya?"

Katen only shrugged.

Yorokobi frowned, downed the rest of his sake. "Geez. For an old lady, you're such a bad influence," he said, and Katen smacked his cheek firmly.

By the time the sun began to set, the three of them were still on the blanket. The sake was finished. Mubōna and Yorokobi had fallen sleep, each of their heads laid unashamedly against Katen's thighs. She was strumming a quiet song – one of orange summer dimness and a fragrant breeze – when Shunsui walked into the garden and upon the scene.

Blinking away his initial surprise, he grinned at the two figures that had curled up like children – sweet, lovely children. "My, my," he said. "Has Kiyuku-chan been working her zanpakuto too hard?"

"That," Katen replied with a smirk. "And they don't know how to hold their liquor."

"Mmm. Like master, like sword – I wish I could drink with Kiyuku-chan."

"Am I not good enough for you anymore?"

Shunsui smiled. "You're all my precious darlings."

Katen, pausing her song, glanced down at Mubōna and Yorokobi once again. Long lashes. Pink and parted lips she could easily have kissed. She was growing soft in her master's old age. "I can see why you're so fond of her."

"Oh?"

"Certainly. She's special." Katen stroked a wisp of hair from Mubōna's cheek, felt Yorokobi's muscles tense and relax next to her. She looked up to Shunsui and smiled knowingly.


	60. Helping Out

Chapter 60  
Helping Out

Supposedly, Kira Izuru was having problems. Or not problems, as such – but difficulties. This was Hinamori's topic of choice while she and Kiyuku sat under the sakura tree for lunch.

"Kira-san's struggling to balance everything, taichou. He's flustered and his zanpakuto isn't being very helpful…"

Kiyuku looked over her tea at Hinamori. "Remind me, who's his zanpakuto again?"

"Wabisuke."

"Ah," Kiyuku hummed. "Goth-Metal."

To which Hinamori giggled before continuing. "Anyway, I was wondering – I know you're very busy at the moment and that Kira-san would probably be too proud to ask you himself – but is there any way you could help him out, taichou? With organizing his squad or something?"

Frankly, Kiyuku had been wondering about the captainless squads. While not exactly pitying them – Kira Izuru and Hisagi Shuhei were perfectly capable lieutenants, after all – she could acknowledge full-well the obstacle of their positions. They were acting as official vice-captains _and _unofficial captains, with all the roles and responsibilities implied by both. It must have been a hard balance to strike.

Hinamori watched Kiyuku keenly, fiddling with the edamame beans in her bowl. Perhaps she was expecting Kiyuku to say no; perhaps she didn't expect anything at all but was taken aback by the softness with which Kiyuku smiled at her. Considering the dejected aloofness which her lieutenant had put-up with over the past few months – for which this pic-nic partly constituted an apology – Kiyuku understood why she would be surprised. Why Hinamori would stutter in disbelief when she said unreservedly, "Absolutely. I'd be happy to help."

"R-Really, taichou!?"

"Of course. Ask him to come by my office tomorrow afternoon and I'll see what I can do."

A determined and cheery nod. Hinamori lifted a bean to her mouth, but hesitated to eat it. "Oh, but taichou…"

"Yes, Hinamori?"

"Could you maybe not tell him that I asked you to do this?"

"Whatever are you talking about?" Kiyuku grinned. "This was all my idea."

Another giggle.

The next day, early in the afternoon, Kira came knocking. Indeed, Hinamori was right to say he was flustered. Though Kiyuku always found him looking frightfully perturbed – mouth ever pulled down in an almost triangular frown – today he somehow managed to look even worse. There were grey bags beneath his lids, a sneaking and sleepless redness about the whites of his eyes. It didn't help that he stared at Kiyuku as though she were out for his blood.

"You wanted to see me, Aramiya-taichou?"

Kiyuku set aside what she'd been busy with – which was nothing, actually; she'd been absent-mindedly clicking a pen for the last ten minutes – and raised her eyebrows at Kira. "You're not in trouble. Don't look so nervous."

He lowered his head. "Sorry, taichou."

"Take a seat," Kiyuku gestured to the chair opposite her. "Would you like some tea?"

No tea for Kira. Kiyuku poured herself some and kept a second cup nearby in case the lieutenant changed his mind. Then, taking a neatly compiled and heavy stack of folders from one of the shelves, she placed it in front of Kira. He bit his lip, gawking at the unnamed pile nervously. "Uh – Aramiya-taichou – what is this?"

Kiyuku took her seat once again, leaning her elbows against the desk and blowing on the tea. "It's your paperwork for the next few days."

Pale and oily from a gross lack of sunlight, as Kiyuku imagined, Kira's features dropped. He blinked at the paperwork, then at Kiyuku, not doing a very good job of hiding his dismay. "Oh," he said simply, and it sounded like a choke. "Okay."

"Will you be able to complete it all?"

"Sure," he wheezed.

"_Really_?"

Kira only swallowed against nothing.

In turn, Kiyuku smiled. She sipped her tea. "Actually, Kira-fukutaichou, I've noticed that you have rather a lot on your plate at the moment," she said. "So I hope you don't mind but I've already taken the liberty of completing the paperwork for you. This pile contains all the month's administration and one or two other miscellaneous items. You only need to hand them into the respective departments."

At this, Kira's eyes widened.

Kiyuku continued. "It was just some of the more mundane work I thought I could help you with. The little things tend to accrue quickly and can end up feeling like a mountain."

"I-I see, taichou."

"Something wrong?" Kiyuku questioned, tilting her head.

"No, taichou. It's just…" he trailed off, lips falling into a disconcerted curve. "Please accept my apologies. I didn't realise I was falling so far behind."

On the contrary, Kiyuku reassured him gently – he'd been doing a decent job; from what she could see, the third squad had good things to say about him and he was handling the situation of the Beast Swords well. "As I said, I only noticed you had an unnecessary amount of administration. It must be difficult for you, having to take on two roles in your squad."

Surprisingly, Kira smiled at her, though it was awkward and weak. "Sometimes."

"Are you coping on your own?"

"There's a lot going on at the moment, Aramiya-taichou" Kira conceded.

Kiyuku hummed, resting the rim of her cup against her lips.

Seeming uncertain, Kira shuffled in his seat, looked at his fingers. "I'm not really cut out for a captain's job."

"The quiet, introspective types aren't usually the first choice for leading a squad, I'll give you that," Kiyuku said, knowing that most would probably have described her as exactly that – the quiet, introspective type. Perhaps with a slight bit more self-assuredness than most others, of course. Nonetheless, she understood Kira's discomfort. "The fifth and third squads have always worked fairly closely. If you'd like, I'd be happy to take some responsibilities off your hands. Just for a little while."

"Thank you, Aramiya-taichou, but I couldn't ask you to–"

"You're not asking. I'm offering."

He seemed to choke for a moment on the interruption, then said in a thin and tentative voice, "Hinamori-san says you're already so busy, though."

Kiyuku continued to smile at him. "A materialized zanpakuto has its perks, you know. Mubōna and Yorokobi do most of my paperwork nowadays." As a matter of fact, she'd handed off all Kira's documents to them for completion – after the ink incident, they'd been banned from administrative work and were more than thrilled to be placed back on the job. "I'll have plenty of time to help if you need me."

Once more, Kira smiled, only this time it was with somewhat more genuineness. He took the pile of folders and considered them for a while – the index-notes Kiyuku had inserted, the paperclips that attached hand-written remarks to certain pages. Drumming his fingers against the cover, he sighed. "Actually, Aramiya-taichou, since you're _offering_ – I need to recruit a new third seat but haven't been able to decide on anyone. I'd appreciate some advice on that."

"Of course," Kiyuku smiled. "Bring me the names and profiles of your options and I'll have a look."

"That's the thing. I haven't even narrowed down any options."

"The profiles of _all _your seated officers then. I'll compile a list of names for you and we'll make a time to discuss it further. Are you free for dinner the day after tomorrow?"

Kira drew a breath, taken aback. "Dinner?"

"Yes. Dinner," Kiyuku half-smirked. "I never work without food."


	61. The Return of Kira

Chapter 61  
The Return of Kira

Matsumoto and Hisagi stared at him from across the table, faces pink from the sake. Though Kira himself had been taken aback by Aramiya-taichou's friendliness – she'd always seemed nice enough and he wasn't exactly intimidated by her, but he also kind of was– his companions' shock annoyed him somewhat.

"You're going to _dinner _with her?" Hisagi spluttered.

"I've already told you. It's for work," Kira insisted, already half-wishing he hadn't mentioned it. "She offered to help me out with a few things."

Matsumoto leaned across the table, giving Kira a suggestive eye as he tried to avoid lowering his. Though he hadn't quite expected this reaction, he was also unsurprised. When it came to men and women, Matsumoto's first thought was never about professionalism or platonic interests. No, no. There always hadto be something more. And Hisagi – well, he probably hadn't forgotten about that time back in the Academy. Frankly, Kira hadn't really forgotten about it either and the thought had crossed his mind that that was what Aramiya-taichou had wanted to see him about.

Which would have been weird since Hinamori said she was still hung upon on Kuchiki-taichou – but as things stood, she didn't seem to remember much anyway. Otherwise it would surely have been a lot more awkward than it was.

"What sort of things is she 'helping you out with', Kira-kun~?" Matsumoto questioned, high-pitched and slurring.

"Nothing like _that_."

Hisagi squinted at him with wicked interest, and Kira knew what was coming. "Wasn't she the one you made out with in fifth year? You know. The one who punched you when you tried–"

"Yes," Kira said sharply, not wanting to bring up the memory now of all times and also not particularly wanting Matsumoto to hear it. "That was her."

Of course though, it was much too late. Matsumoto shrieked. "You made _out_ with Aramiya-_taichou_!?" she pressed her hands against the table conspiratorially. "And she punched you! _Why_ did she punch you?"

Before Kira could stop it, Hisagi belted out the worst part of the story for the world to hear: "Kira tried to take her shirt off!"

"No way!" Matsumoto gasped, theatrically enough that her breasts jiggled.

Yes way. Kira felt himself shrink, sipping squeamishly at his sake. To be fair though, both he and Aramiya-san – as she'd been called back in those days – had been really drunk and the whole thing had started out as a dare anyway. It shouldn't have been that big of a deal. Hisagi had made out with a lot more girls and had tried a lot more things than taking their shirts off. But because she was a captain now, having made out with her was basically the equivalent of having slept with teacher.

Only Hisagi knew. Now that Matsumoto did too, a sour popping homed itself in Kira's stomach. Not that he was worried about word getting out. Matsumoto was fairly good at keeping things to herself. He was more worried about never hearing the end of it if he continued drinking with her.

"Don't look so embarrassed," Hisagi smirked. "You should be proud of yourself. Even before she was a captain, Aramiya-taichou was inaccessible as hell…"

"You shouldn't speak about a lady like that, Shūhei," Matsumoto shot him a glittering look of disapproval and then grinned again at Kira. "Do tell us though! What was it _like_~"

Kira swallowed. "What was what like?"

"Getting a black eye from a girl half your size," Hisagi sniggered.

"No – making out with Aramiya-taichou!"

He wasn't about to tell Matsumoto that kissing Aramiya-taichou had been the most fun he'd ever had kissing a girl. Ever. Because that would have made it seem like more than what it was. Still, Kira could feel his face go red and he knew it wasn't from the alcohol.

"It was fine."

"Just _fine_?"

"Yes. Fine."

Hella fine.

"Wonder what Kuchiki-taichou would do to you if he found out," Hisagi raised his eyebrows.

"_Ooh~_!" Matsumoto squealed, turning to look at Hisagi with intrigue. "Do you think Kira's a rebound?"

"Oh damn!"

Matsumoto gawked back at Kira excitedly, saying with delight, "You're a captain's _rebound_, Kira-kun!"

No point in objecting. There would be no listening to reason from either of them. With a sigh and a burning face, Kira drank down his sake in silence.


	62. A Meeting

Chapter 62  
A Meeting

Yorokobi opened the door to Kiyuku's office, scowling at whom he was fully expecting to be Senbonzakura. "You're late," he berated, but was stopped short by the person before him – not Senbonzakura but his master, pompous and regal as he stood out in the evening's darkness. Just as Yorokobi narrowed his eyes, so too did Kuchiki Byakuya.

"What do you want?"

"Where is Kiyuku?"

"Aramiya-taichou, to you," Yorokobi spat, eager to add something derogatory but resisting the temptation. To the question, he responded sneeringly, "She's not here."

Byakuya graced Yorokobi with an unmoved stare. Then, as though with distrust, he glanced past into the office. "Well then where might I find her?"

"Not sure. She's out for dinner."

As was to be expected, this elicited a reaction – or, at least, a reaction of sorts. Returning his gaze to Yorokobi, the corner of Byakuya's mouth did a jump. He raised an eyebrow of incredulity then narrowed his eyes once again into an expression of something between concern and distaste. "Out for dinner with whom?"

"My, but you'rea curious one," Yorokobi smirked. "Kiyuku-chan's out with the lieutenant from the third squad – _you_ _know_… the pretty one with blonde hair and that dark, mysterious vibe. The two of them have been spending a _lot of time together _lately."

This was an outright lie – both what he said and the way he said it, with all the risqué accentuation he could muster – and Yorokobi knew it. The lieutenant from the third squad was cute but he was the furthest thing from Kiyuku's type. Yorokobi suspected she wasn't exactly his either, besides which they'd literally only spoken once before that evening's dinner. Plus, Wabisuke was creepier than rotten mushrooms. Any possibility of something of _that_ sort happening between Kiyuku and Kira Izuru was less than non-existent. Just about as likely as Yorokobi would be to kiss Byakuya's feet.

However, to watch the man squirm internally was worth lying for. The slight downward curve of his mouth. The twitch of a vein in his neck. Oh, yes. Totally worth it. Even if Kiyuku would be annoyed about it later.

Yorokobi cocked his head at Byakuya. "Want me to let Kiyuku-chan know that you popped by? She'll probably be back late. No point in you waiting for her."

With impressive subtlety, Byakuya's nostrils flared. "No need," he said, turning to leave. "Senbonzakura. You can go in now. Your playmates are waiting."

"_Playmates_!?" Yorokobi hissed after him, though Byakuya did not acknowledge it as he left down the corridor.

Prideful dick.

For some moments, Yorokobi scowled at the receding image of Byakuya's back – uptight and composed, even though Yorokobi _knew _he couldn't possibly be so chilled out on the inside. It was only then that Yorokobi noticed Senbonzakura, who was leaning magnanimously against the wall as he said, "You should try not to aggravate my master so."

"Me?" Yorokobi seethed. "I'm not the one who– you know what, nevermind. Just get inside. We've been waiting for you for ages."

Indeed, as Senbonzakura strode into the office and Yorokobi pulled closed the door behind them, a number of impatient glares were thrown their way.

On the coffee table, the snacks were gone. Nuts, fruit, crackers – all that was left was a pile of inedible shells and chewed-out cores. Suzumebachi buzzed about with wasp-like swiftness. Hyourinmaru turned back to admiring one of Kiyuku's blue orchids. And on the couch, possessive and innocent like a puppy, Ashisogi Jizō was squeezed next to Mubōna despite an abundance of space.

Ignoring the unhappy onlookers, Senbonzakura addressed this detail with vehemence. "You," he pointed to Ashisogi Jizō. "Move now. You are in my seat."

The creature pulled a sullen expression, huddling closer to Mubōna with a menacing squeak. It wrapped its arms around her torso, leaned its golden head against her shoulder.

Responding in kind with an affectionate grip on Ashisogi Jizō's hands, Mubōna said, "He's here to stay." To which a select few giggled. "You'll have to find a place on the floor."

Senbonzakura appeared unruffled. He moved across the room, around the coffee table and – with a familiarity that made some of the other zanpakuto raise their eyebrows – seated himself at Mubōna's feet. He crossed his legs and arms, leaning against Mubōna's shins as he shuffled to get comfortable. Yorokobi rolled his eyes, enough so that he wouldn't be surprised if they disappeared into his head; Mubōna sighed audibly, but did not object to Senbonzakura's closeness. Quite the contrary.

"Is that everyone, Yorokobi-san?" Sode No Shirayuki questioned, sweet and smiling upon her seat. "Shall we begin?"

Looking at her, even after all this time, even after she'd clearly expressed that she'd forgiven them, still made Yorokobi cringe. Had it been him – had he or Mubōna been the sacrificial lamb for Kuchiki Byakuya's pride – he wouldn't have been so forgiving. Mubōna seemed to think Sode No Shirayuki was slowly but surely lowering their body temperatures so they'd eventually freeze to death. Like boiling a frog. She didn't seem like the type, but nonetheless Yorokobi remained wary.

For now though, he swallowed against the sneaking feeling of shame and nodded, lounging himself next to Mubōna on the arm of the couch.

"There will be no need for formalities. We all know why we're here," Mubōna announced.

"We've got some news about the situation with the rogue zanpakuto," Chimpette, seated with Snakey on the opposite couch, said somberly. "Turns out they haven't just been disappearing like we thought – they're being hunted."

"_Hunted_?" Tobiume repeated.

"Yeah," Snakey nodded. "There's a zanpakuto named Kirikaze that can absorb reiatsu."

"He's been leeching power from the other Beast Swords to increase his own," Chimpette explained. "Kazeshini seems to think he came across Kirikaze – or at least, his ability – today. He's only told us and a few others."

"Absorbing reiatsu is pretty similar to Ruriiro Kujaku's technique, right?"

"A lot more powerful, now that he doesn't have a master to hold him back."

Tobiume looked with fright to Yorokobi. "The Shinigami won't be able to take on an opponent like that…"

"We must act immediately!" Senbonzakura declared.

Snakey and Chimpette shot him an unimpressed stare. "And do _what_, exactly?"

"Find this Kirikaze and attack. We'll surprise him under the cover of darkness. Tonight."

Yorokobi shook his head at Senbonzakura's bravado, though he perhaps wasn't entirely wrong – about finding and fighting this zanpakuto themselves, that is, not about doing it _right then_.

"Dummy!" Suzumebachi buzzed around Senbonzakura's head in ferocious zig-zags, the ring of her voice bell-like and rational. "We can't just go in without a plan."

"We ought to inform the rest of the group as well," Hyourinmaru added.

"Perhaps most of you haven't noticed," Yorokobi remarked, glancing around the room at their small gathering, "but none of us exactly have a lot of reiatsu left ourselves."

"If we do decide to attack Kirikaze, it'll likely be the end of us," Mubōna said in turn.

"The end of us _in these forms_, she means, though that's if we win." Yorokobi looked down at Mubōna and noticed, with a certain amount of surprise, that her fingers were gently and imperceptibly tangling themselves in the silk of Senbonzakura's hair. Out of boredom, Ashisogi Jizō had fallen asleep against her arm – which was perhaps kind of cute – and so would not make a jealousy-fueled scene. Senbonzakura may or may not have noticed it himself. Yorokobi quickly moved his attention elsewhere, feeling as though he was intruding on something. A 'sister doing-the-dirty with her sweetheart', sort of thing, though he knew that was being a bit dramatic.

"So you're saying…" Sode No Shirayuki began hesitantly, clutching her hands in her lap.

"None of us are going to make it out," Mubōna nodded, and Yorokobi recognised in her voice the slightest sadness.

A perturbed and bursting silence fogged the room. No one seemed to want to look at anyone else – Hyourinmaru glanced again at the blue orchid; Suzumebachi aimed her gaze at the floor. Some bit their lips. There were a lot of fidgeting fingers. Morbidly curious, Yorokobi's eyes flicked back to Mubōna and watched her fingers graze themselves with perfect invisibility against Senbonzakura's nape.

Yorokobi cleared his throat. Mubōna's hand promptly retreated into her lap.

"I say we all sleep on this," Yorokobi said, wondering expressions falling upon him. "Tell whoever doesn't already know – and, if you are so inclined, spend some time with your Shinigami, though don't let them in on what we're up to."

Strangely enough, his chest began to ache. Implicit in his words was the fact that they'd all be saying goodbye. _Bye-bye, Kiyuku-chan_.

Hums of agreement. They would all regroup in a few days if the situation didn't demand more immediacy. With gloomy severity, everyone got up to leave, though Yorokobi demanded they help put Kiyuku's office back in order first – there were a few groans and it seemed to take an age to get any tidying done.

Mubōna, having tenderly laid Ashisogi Jizō against a pillow, had already disappeared out the door with Senbonzakura.


	63. Jealousy (I)

Chapter 63  
Jealousy [I]

The teahouse they'd gone to was not far – a few minutes' walk from the fifth squad's barracks. What tasteless sense of curiosity drove Byakuya to go looking for them, he wasn't sure, and he did so knowing that he would probably regret it. Perhaps it was all some sort of masochism he didn't realise he was prone to. A diabolical need: to know whether or not Kiyuku's zanpakuto had been spouting nonsense; to see what made the third squad's lieutenant worthy of her – or, more specifically, worthier than Byakuya himself.

In between denial and a certain amount of indignation, Byakuya reminded himself that this was ultimately what he'd wanted. If Kiyuku had moved on, then he'd gotten his way; it was for this that he'd slashed her heart as well as his own. Because she deserved more. That was what he'd told himself. _She. Deserved. More._

And yet, spotting her and the lieutenant through the window, a terrible urge to do something pitted itself against Byakuya. He could very easily have gone in there and told the lieutenant to leave. Leave the teahouse. Leave Kiyuku and never so much as look at her again. If that didn't work, Byakuya could always establish plausible reason for a duel to the death.

He saw open folders across the table – had this something to do with work?

What work would Kiyuku have to do with the third squad?

No.

She'd tilted her head sweetly, was smiling as she spoke. The light from the teahouse enveloped her in softness and she was beautiful. So beautiful it hurt.

Kira Izuru was smiling as well. He nodded, leaned in, widened and narrowed his eyes with intimate interest. Perhaps he too had noticed the stunning differences of colour in Kiyuku's eyes. Perhaps he'd managed to spot the scar on her forehead. Byakuya, detached and impersonal under the cover of darkness, felt himself cringe – the lieutenant could very well have been eying out the thin pinkness of Kiyuku's lips, imagining what it would be like to kiss her. If he hadn't already done so.

No. _No_. _**NO**_.

Kiyuku pointed to one of the folders. The lieutenant nodded.

She lifted her cup and sipped – tea? Or was it plum wine? – and Kira Izuru said something that made her laugh.

Byakuya couldn't hear it, but the mere sight was enough. He was under no delusions – he knew that he himself was not a particularly funny man. However, somehow, he had also made Kiyuku laugh. What he'd said or why or when was of no consequence. All that mattered was the way her nose had crinkled. The breaths she'd drawn in between. How pink her cheeks had gone and how the tip of her tongue had peaked through her teeth.

How much it shattered him, like frail glass against flames, to see it all now.

Of course, Kiyuku was supposed to be moving on. Byakuya had assumed that, in the end, he would be okay with it – he realised though, watching her through the window, that he couldn't possibly allow her to move on with someone that made her laugh like that. The same way he had. He'd rather die.

Perhaps a duel to the death wouldn't be necessary in this situation; perhaps a generous enough bribe would do instead. A hefty sum to never bother with Kiyuku again.

Perhaps the lieutenant needed only to be threatened. That would be easy enough.

The two of them got up from the table, Kiyuku gathering up the folders and handing them to Kira Izuru. Her hair fell across her cheek as she did so, a magnificent amber wisp against lightly freckled ivory – Byakuya wanted so badly to reach through the window, to brush it aside. But with dainty, capable fingers, Kiyuku did so herself, allowing her hand to linger behind her ear as she said inaudible somethings. Kira Izuru gave a stupid smile – what right had he to smile like that? – and then he left.

Out from the view of the window. Through the front entrance. Byakuya could have watched him leave into the night-shaded streets, could have followed him for more answers on the matter of what had made Kiyuku laugh. Whether or not he knew what colour her eyes were. If he would ever love and adore Kiyuku as Byakuya himself did – frankly, that was not impossible, but in an upset state of refusal Byakuya reasoned: no, no one could possibly love her so much. For no other reason than he couldn't bring himself to bear it.

Kira Izuru disappeared around a corner. Kiyuku stayed illuminated within the frame of the window, sitting back down and staring at the cup before her.

Her body curved itself into a hunch. Her lips faded into a dull, flat line. Byakuya felt his throat grow sticky and dry at the swiftness of it all, of her folding into greyness as though she were wilting. Was it because the lieutenant was gone? Because she'd be spending another night unkissed and ultimately, without a second body alongside her in bed, alone?

Byakuya sighed. Kiyuku did as well: a sluggish, miserable heave as she leaned against her chair's backrest.

For the first time in months, she looked suddenly and inexplicably exhausted. Enough so that she seemed about ready to crawl underneath the table, curl up and die. Aching all over, Byakuya considered putting his arms around her and taking her back to her barracks. Or to his. To his bed. To kiss her to sleep and feel her breathing against his chest and to lie next to her forever. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad. They could wake up the next morning and go on pretending nothing had happened. That would be fine.

No it wouldn't.

Stomach stinging while his mind tumbled between Kira Izuru and Kiyuku – oh, _Kiyuku _– Byakuya turned away from the inaccessible image in the window and made silently for his private quarters.


	64. Poetry

Chapter 64  
Poetry

Kira showed up again some days later, smiling at Kiyuku with flustered whiteness. While he looked better overall – there was no longer that searing burn about his eyes or the pasty pallour to his skin – he still seemed nervous, gawking down at Kiyuku with wide-eyed hesitation as though she were a small and temperamental animal. One with claws to kill. Arms held squarely behind his back, chin balanced with peculiar bearing, Kira greeted her hesitantly.

He told her things were running much more smoothly in his squad: the new third seat was due to start any day now and Kira was confident they'd made a good choice; the seated officers were motivated; Kiyuku's help with the paperwork had taken a significant weight off his shoulders.

To which Kiyuku gave a gentle smile. "I'm very glad I was able to be of some assistance."

Shuffling slightly, mouth in an awkward curve, Kira's voice was quick and soft. "I really appreciate your help, Aramiya-taichou. I hope this isn't weird but Hinamori-san told me you liked flowers…" And from behind his back, he revealed a single, pink hydrangea – full and delicate, the sphere of blushing petals undulating and crinkled like a tuft of chiffon. "To say thank you."

Kiyuku felt her face begin to prickle with warmth. "Oh." She stared at the hydrangea. "I do love flowers. But you didn't have to–"

"I wanted to."

No one had given her flowers before.

Besides her father, of course, always freshly picked from the manor garden.

_And besides Byakuya._ That one time.

Kira held the hydrangea out to her, uncertain, and Kiyuku took it.

Her seated officers often left her small gifts in the form of snacks – Hinamori's cookies, salted nuts and sugared fruits, special teas. Whether to butter her up or to express gratitude, Kiyuku wasn't entirely sure, but nonetheless she accepted them gladly. It never felt strange to do so and she assumed her officers weren't uncomfortable doing it.

This particular exchange, however, was puzzling. Maybe it shouldn't have been. Hydrangeas were for gratitude and the colour pink could have meant a lot of things. Nothing strange about it – and yet, a powerful urge to disappear gutted Kiyuku. People didn't just _give her flowers_. She felt herself blush. Her tongue went numb. Kira himself had said that he didn't want this to be weird. He was simply a lieutenant giving a captain a small token of appreciation. It just so happened to be a flower.

"Thank you," Kiyuku said, voice much calmer than she felt. "This is very sweet."

Kira grinned.

Kiyuku eyed out the hydrangea. Soft. Frilly. Not from Byakuya.

"Oh, also…" Apparently not finished, Kira pulled out a small envelope from his hakama and handed it over. "Hinamori-san also said you liked poetry."

"I do."

"Do you write?"

Kiyuku, balancing the hydrangea in one hand and the envelope in the other, tried to banish the ever sneaking redness from her face. "I'm not very good."

Perhaps not having expected this answer – wasn't the captain of the fifth squad supposed to be good at everything? – Kira bit his lip. He raised a hand to his cheek in absent-minded thought, lowered his eyes for a moment. Then, still grinning with boyish inelegance, he looked at Kiyuku again. "There's a section in the Seireitei Communication for poetry."

"Yes. I've seen some of the haikus you've written," Kiyuku choked on her own smile. "You write well."

"Thank you, taichou. But I was wondering if you'd maybe – you know – want to get involved. There's sometimes meetings for people who enjoy it – poetry, I mean. If you'd be interested."

The two of them stared at each other. Kiyuku bit at the inside of her cheek.

"Maybe," she pondered. "But I have to be getting back to my work for now. Thank you again for the flower and for," Kiyuku gently waved the envelope. "This. I hope things continue to go well with your squad."

Kira, though looking like he was disappointed, nodded. "Thank you, Aramiya-taichou. Again, I really do appreciate all the help you gave me."

"It's in the job description," Kiyuku said with a thin smile, feeling a little more than rude as she pushed the door closed. "Bye now."

For reasons unknown, Kiyuku's mind raced with a piercing lack of clarity. It seemed wrong to think that captains would get flowers and mysterious envelopes from other squads' lieutenants – perhaps it was perfectly innocent; or, more gauchely, perhaps Kira really had been the guy she'd made out with in the Academy and now this had something to do with that. Unlikely. But no less discomforting. Kiyuku moved away from the door slowly, making for her desk and gazing at the hydrangea in her hand.

The first time Byakuya had kissed her, it had been in a garden of hydrangeas. Sweet smells. Watercolours of pinks and purples – and amongst it all, the touch of his lips: tender and perfect. A longing pang electrified Kiyuku's spine. For closeness. For him. Some months may have passed, but still Kiyuku had to swallow constantly against the looming burn of heartache. Breathing was hard. She was exhausted. All because she could do nothing to rid herself of Byakuya. Because she didn't want to. Much like having a poison in her system, with all its incessant and delicious aching – there was no going away and, paradoxically, Kiyuku didn't think she would cope if it did.

She wandered across the office, feet seeming to sink into the floor beneath her. Mubōna and Yorokobi were on the couches with tea and prying expressions, eying out the items in her hands. Kiyuku had very nearly forgotten they were there.

"How lovely," Mubōna commented, upright and proper as she rose to stand. "Perhaps you should consider joining Kira-fukutaichou at the poetry gatherings."

"No," Kiyuku said slowly. She seated herself at her desk, placed the hydrangea down gently. "I don't think so."

"Could be fun. Maybe then you'll realise you're half-decent at writing," Yorokobi shrugged.

Kiyuku only kept quiet, gazing at the envelope in her hand as though it might spontaneously set itself alight. From the kitchen, Mubōna could be heard reaching around the cupboards; Yorokobi slinked from the couch to Kiyuku's side, leaning next to her with one hand against the desk.

"What's that?" he questioned regarding the envelope.

"A letter, I suppose," Kiyuku said. "Possibly a poem."

"_Ooh~_" Yorokobi cooed. "Let's read it."

Opening the drawer next to her, Kiyuku grasped a letter-opener and ran its blade smoothly through the envelope's seal. There was a single page inside – a rough, special paper – with _Aramiya-taichou_ scrawled on the front. A charming, childlike handwriting. Kiyuku took the page and turned it over.

_Pale valley lily –  
a pure and humble shimmer  
to this marigold._

_Kira._

Lily of the valley for her. A marigold for Kira Izuru. It was straightforward and thoroughly polite imagery, of course – fifth squad and third, captain and lieutenant; the very words _pure _and _humble _were rung with a sexless and lackluster chastity. There was no reason for Yorokobi to have hummed with such suggestive throatiness into Kiyuku's ear. Nonetheless, she felt the blood run warm and bright through her cheeks.

Deftly, Yorokobi plucked the poem from her fingers, setting about a contemplative march around the office as he eyed the words with critical interest. Mubōna emerged from the kitchen with a glass of water in hand.

"A letter?" she questioned.

"A _haiku_," Yorokobi purred. "Kira Izuru called Kiyuku-chan his flower."

Kiyuku rolled her eyes, shook her head. "He definitely didn't do that."

Mubōna set down the glass and propped the hydrangea into it with unnecessary care. While she leaned forward to inhale its flowery scent, Yorokobi read the poem aloud with a theatrical flourish. Palm held affectedly to his chest. Voice rising and falling in a yearning song of love-struck sop. Kiyuku could have laughed, were it not for the dull throb between her lungs.

Concluding on a drawn-out sigh, Yorokobi widened his eyes at Mubōna for a response.

Much to his dismay though, she only nodded. "It's well-written."

"Don't be so boring! Read into the steamy undertones with me."

"Vent your sexual frustration somewhere else," Mubōna said. Then, ignoring Yorokobi's muttered insult, she looked to Kiyuku. "Did _you_ like the haiku, Kiyuku-sama?"

"It was very thoughtful."

"Similar to your own, isn't it?" Mubōna gave a nearly imperceptible smile. "You should add it to your collection."

Kiyuku's eyes flickered to the open drawer in which she kept her book of poetry – or rather, her book of diary-like scrawlings. Silly and maudlin. Much too much of an embarrassment to be considered as anything artistic. She liked flowers, but that was about all Kiyuku's poetry had in common with Kira's – her writing was otherwise too long and sentimental, lacking in the minimalist precision of a haiku.

More than that, Kiyuku considered her recent drought of subject matter to be nauseatingly pitiful. No matter the metaphors, no matter the symbolism, it all came down to one thing. Over and over, one thing only. Byakuya. Like a craving that wouldn't stop. A painful niggle in the stomach that demanded attention. Byakuya.

Taking the notebook from its place with self-conscious awareness, Kiyuku paged through it until coming to the last entry. Two weeks ago, about. She'd woken up at strange hours after a disoriented series of dreams – something about paper; there'd been butterflies and flowers – and had scribbled down arbitrary lines of words that didn't even rhyme. Oh, yes. The earliest morning. The hour of the ironic and the pining; those who are awake and tortured by words for someone who was not there. What a cliché heartbreak had made her into.

In the meantime, Mubōna rounded the table, now peering past Kiyuku's shoulder into the open page of the notebook.

"This one's new," she observed.

"Not really," Kiyuku droned. "It's all the same nonsense."

_The spring flowers bloom  
upon hard, dark branches  
they bloom so gently  
\- the narcissus & jonquil  
the aloe & asphodel -  
against ardent paper hearts  
they bloom so gently_

_Your garden blossoms  
with eglantine rose  
with primrose and poppies  
it blossoms undying -  
though the ambrosia are  
in wilting downturned  
you blossom undying_

_The anemone kisses &  
wishes for plum_

_The rainflower sobs &  
waits for the peach_

_The spring flowers bloom  
against these wintry woods  
they bloom so gently  
& rouse the hollowed seeds  
_


	65. Jealousy (II)

Chapter 65  
Jealousy (II)

Renji placed down document after document – for consideration, for signing, so on and so forth – and Byakuya's eyes combed the pages with reflexive attention. Apart from the Beast Sword situation, which in itself was being controlled, there was nothing urgent about this meeting and so Byakuya found himself paying little attention to his lieutenant's babblings. Renji mentioned the schedule for the next two days – which Byakuya already knew about – as well as the feedback on Kurosaki Ichigo – which inevitably remained the same as before.

A Hell Butterfly sat perched upon the edge of the desk, having arrived that afternoon with a summons from the Captain-Commander. A meeting in three days. According to Renji, no other captains had received any such message; it was Byakuya alone. Unusual, of course, but not particularly disconcerting. Byakuya even felt a certain amount of interest.

Perhaps he could convince Genryūsai to ban romantic fraternizing between captains and lieutenants.

When the paperwork ran out and the stack of folders was neatly closed at his side, Byakuya considered his lieutenant with bland awareness.

The day's end was fast approaching and Renji had clearly made plans for the evening: there was about him that particular air of concealed impatience, under the influence of which he spoke in a rapid jumble and stared at Byakuya with eager anticipation, waiting to be dismissed.

"Is there anything else?" Byakuya questioned, pushing the folders toward Renji's side of the desk.

"That was everything, taichou. I just need to drop the paperwork off for the next captain to look through," Renji said with not-so-subtle emphasis.

"That'll be the seventh squad, I assume."

"The fifth squad, actually."

Naturally, it didn't take long for Byakuya to consider what thismeant, nor for a new pounding to resound in his chest. The fifth squad. Kiyuku. Renji stood a chance of seeing her while Byakuya would have missed the opportunity completely. Thrumming his fingers against the desk, pausing for some seconds to quell his extra heartbeats, Byakuya tried to dismiss the thought and couldn't.

This insistent _need _to see Kiyuku was sapping. As things stood, Byakuya spent an unmentionable amount of time devising ways of 'running into' her and 'just so happening' to be around. Of course, most of these plans never materialized; however, those few that did always ended with a stake through Byakuya's heart and he would drive himself mad with infatuated memories. Memories of nearly-touching fingers. Memories of a moment in which he'd looked at her and she'd already been looking back.

And, as was the most recent topic to all his thoughts, memories – whether imagined or real – of her and Kira Izuru in that teahouse.

With a hum, Byakuya rose to stand. "You can leave for the evening, Abarai. I'll deliver the documents myself."

By this, Renji was apparently surprised. He touched his fingers to the pile of documents, saying with a look of knowing uncertainty, "I don't mind taking care of it–"

"You're dismissed."

"_Oh_." An uneasy glance. A nod. "Alright then. Thank you, Kuchiki-taichou."

Renji left. Shortly afterwards, so too did Byakuya, paperwork in hand.

There was no need for him to rush – though the day may have been ending, he knew that Kiyuku was likely to continue with her work for another hour or so. Still, however, with the reckless impatience of a young boy, Byakuya walked as fast as his legs would allow. Out from the sixth squad's barracks. Through a series of streets, avoiding eye-contact with passers-by. Into the garden of the fifth squad's quarters. The flowerbeds were blooming with petals of pastel.

Byakuya refused to slow. He made his way into the corridors and happened past a number of Kiyuku's officers, nodding in greeting and otherwise ignoring them.

He was grateful the lieutenant didn't seem to be around.

He kept himself steeled against the possibility of running into Mubōna Yorokobi.

_Almost there_.

Byakuya had rounded the last corner to Kiyuku's office when, with the shock of having smacked into a wall, he collided violently with another tiny body. Sent them tripping backwards as a confusion of documents flew into the air. A paper cascade – and amongst it all: a flash of red. A pair of blue eyes that glared at Byakuya just as vehemently as he glared into them; at least for some moments – that is, before he recognised the girlishly curved features or before her perfume ghosted against him like a suspended mist.

A harsh breath caught in Byakuya's throat and he felt himself crumple.

_Her_.

Kiyuku's own face softened, cheeks blooming into redness as she looked him up and down. Astonishment sketched itself into her gaze followed by something like embarrassment, as though he were an intruder. A strange animal in an intimate situation.

"Kuchiki-san," Kiyuku gasped, straightening herself. "Fancy bumping into you here."

"Not quite." Byakuya gestured to the scattered folders and documents. "I was bringing you these."

Kiyuku glanced toward her feet. Back again. "Couldn't your lieutenant do that?"

"Unfortunately not."

They stared at each other: an unbreathing handful of seconds, stabbed to the core by a thousand daggers of emotion. Then, haori fluttering, Kiyuku bent down onto her haunches and began to gather the papers. Still saying nothing, Byakuya joined her.

Several times in the moments that followed, he peaked at her hands and her cheeks and at everything she did, not managing once to meet her eye.

The piles into which they placed the papers were uncoordinated and messy.

Perhaps he'd be able to convince Kiyuku to let him help her with the sorting later.

"Are you well?" Kiyuku questioned, not looking at him. Foreign. Restrained.

Byakuya paused to reply, "Mostly. Have you been well?"

"Mostly."

"You look… good."

Why he said so, he wasn't sure. Of course she looked 'good'. She looked like autumn leaves in the wind or a butterfly on wet leaves. Like snow and fire. An impossibility fated to drown him in fantasies. _Of course she looked 'good' _– but when her hands went still, her head lifting to face him, Byakuya realised (perhaps for the first time) that she didn't know it like he did.

Fingers lingering with the slightest tremble over a paper, Kiyuku bit her lip. Blushed more deeply. It seemed she wanted to say something. With quiet desperation, Byakuya watched her lips part and willed her to do so. But no. She returned her gaze to the ground and said nothing at all.

She continued to pick up papers one-by-one. So too did Byakuya, biding his time, anxious to stay with her.

Anxious for her voice. For some answers.

"I heard you've been seeing the lieutenant from the third squad."

"Seeing him…" Kiyuku murmured, sounding unsure. "What about it?"

"How long?"

The papers were disappearing. Soon it would be over and Byakuya would have to leave. With this in mind, he stopped, watching Kiyuku's painfully slow movements until she also paused.

"What do you mean 'how long'?" she raised an eyebrow at him.

"I want to know how long you've been seeing him."

Kiyuku pursed her lips. Whether at the question or at Byakuya's unintendedly insistent tone, it wasn't clear. Either way, her next words were deliberate and calm, "It's not really any of your business."

Those months ago, Byakuya had known this was what he'd set himself up for: locking himself out, swallowing the key. He couldn't possibly have expected things to be easy, even if the wounds in Kiyuku's heart had closed over and she no longer wanted him. Nonetheless, though he should have expected that this was how the conversation would go, her words still set alight a fresh frustration between his temples. "I have a right to know."

Kiyuku narrowed her eyes. "Oh, _you do_, do you?"

"Yes."

Not really.

A bitter flicker appeared in the curve of her lips, in the flush of her cheeks. "Well. Even if that werethe case, I wouldn't be quite so confident about it," Kiyuku spat. "After all, _I _had a right not to be strung along by a man that didn't love me – just look how that turned out."

So the wounds hadn't closed.

Byakuya's own tore open with agonizing fury.

He struggled for breath, feeling as though he'd been struck through the stomach with a fist of ice. The words had been hard enough upon his own voice – _I don't love you _– but to hear her say it, for her to _actually_ believe that he didn't love her, was a cruelty he hadn't thought possible. Not until then. Instinctive and out of his control, Byakuya leaned forward to grip Kiyuku's wrist. She tried to tug herself away, glanced around with anxious frenzy, but he tightened his hold. Pulled her towards him: close enough to see the grey specks like stars in her eyes.

"This has nothing to do with that," he asserted.

"I never said it did," Kiyuku scoffed in turn. "Or does it? Are you asking me about Kira because you're jealous?" Her accusations were venomously tipped with derision. "Was all that nonsense about wanting the best for me just to cover your own ass?"

"Stop this, Kiyuku."

"What do you want from me?" she hissed.

Of that, Byakuya himself wasn't sure. He considered the feathery weight of her wrist in his hand, bore his eyes into hers and realised there were tears brimming upon the lashes. How selfish of him. How horrifyingly selfish to do this to her, as though the first time hadn't been enough.

Not letting her go but swallowing against his frantic heartache, Byakuya said with only half a sense of honesty, "I want us to be… to be _friends_."

Kiyuku heaved in an unstable breath and stared at him, cheeks red and blotchy like watercolour. She shut her eyes – against him and against the tears that threatened – and said in a low whimper, "But I don't."

"What?"

"I don't want to be your friend." Managing at last to rip her wrist from his clutches, Kiyuku grasped at the remaining papers and shoved them into a single pile. She held them to her chest, rose up from her knees in a graceful hurry. "I don't want to _just_ be your friend."

"Wait–"

But before Byakuya could so much as straighten himself, she was gone.


	66. Together Amongst the Peonies

Chapter 66  
Together Amongst the Peonies

The peony bushes were still blooming, abundant with whites and pinks like ruffled feathers. Seated back-to-back with Yorokobi and Kiyuku-sama, full and lethargic after dinner, Mubōna gazed at them – marble-like buds, the shy peaking of the little blooms, bursting flowers in all their maturity and pomp. It was dark, silent, and the peonies seemed particularly beautiful tonight. Wistfully, Mubōna lifted her hand to stroke their petals.

Yorokobi and Kiyuku-sama spoke in affected murmurs next to her.

"And then what did he say?"

"He told me he wants us to be friends."

So the story went about Kiyuku-sama's earlier run-in with Kuchiki Byakuya.

Even though she'd obviously been angry before, she wasn't now. On the contrary, Kiyuku-sama spoke with contemplative softness about the man – how he'd held her wrist and had looked at her with familiar tenderness. How her heart had fluttered and she'd tried to pull away in hopes of him pulling her closer. Perhaps she was considering the possibility. Perhaps she was almost ready to let go of being angry and hurt and just... _being_.

Any number of days before, both Yorokobi and Mubōna herself would have scoffed. Would probably have shaken their heads at Kiyuku-sama's sentimentality or declared in dismay that Kuchiki Byakuya was not worth her friendship. Not tonight though. Not after they'd both given into Senbonzakura's relentless charming – Yorokobi had gone drinking with him some nights before and had come back singing his praises; Mubōna, in several charmed moments, had thrown Senbonzakura's mask from his face to kiss him on the lips as though it were a game. She'd always scurried away with an uncomfortable pounding in her ears afterwards. She blushed to think of it now.

The fact of the matter was that they both liked Senbonzakura.

More importantly, they'd realised that Katen-san was right – Senbonzakura wouldn't have liked _them _if his master didn't still like Kiyuku-sama.

It was all so much more complicated than Mubōna would have preferred. She sighed.

"Kiyuku-sama…"

"Yes?"

"I'm so sorry."

Behind her, there was a shuffling. Yorokobi's stupidly sharp shoulder blades stiffened while Kiyuku-sama turned to face her.

"What on earth for?" she questioned, eyes wide and gentle.

Yorokobi, even without them having spoken about it, knew why Mubōna would be sorry. He'd been feeling it too. It was clear in the way he held his breath, in how the tips of his fingers poked hers in a silent and brotherly act of encouragement. They'd done their best to make amends – in their own, convoluted way – but maybe it wasn't enough, just short of fully mending the damage they'd done to Kiyuku-sama's heart.

"Perhaps if it hadn't been for us, things would not have turned out like this," Mubōna explained, tearing her gaze from the peonies. "Between you and Kuchiki Byakuya, that is."

Still for some moments, Kiyuku-sama stared, tilted her head. She glanced from Mubōna to Yorokobi with an innocent expression of questioning, then back again. An affectionate smile sowed itself into her lips – and amongst the pallour of the peonies, in the light of the moon, Kiyuku-sama looked like the kind of flower that wouldn't lose its bloom. To Mubōna, she said simply, "Don't be silly."

"She's right though," Yorokobi objected, shifting his body upon the pic-nic blanket. "I mean, it wasn't exactly _all _our fault but–"

"None of it was." Drawing her knees up to her chest, Kiyuku-sama spoke with soothing clarity. "There's no one to blame for what happened."

At this, Yorokobi raised an eye-brow. He threw a look in Mubōna's direction before asking critically, "Not even Hisana's?"

"Not even Hisana's," Kiyuku-sama repeated. "There's no fault in being loved."

"Nor in loving," Mubōna murmured.

"Yes. So I've realised."

Mubōna let her mind drift once again to Senbonzakura – the clueless, handsome dullard – and thought that perhaps she had realised the same thing. Perhaps, in this short time of being their own, she and Yorokobi had grown more into themselves than they could ever have done otherwise. Perhaps it had something to do with Senbonzakura: something like destiny or red-stringed ties, though Mubōna wasn't so sure what she thought about that.

More importantly though, it had everything to do with Kiyuku-sama. Where at first it had seemed marvelous, being free to come and go and do as they pleased, the time was now right to return to the way things had been before. Only now, Mubōna and Yorokobi would be more profoundly tied to Kiyuku-sama than ever. Friends rather than simply some aspect of her soul. Friends with a deepened understanding.

What exactly that meant, Mubōna couldn't decide. She did know one thing though.

"We love you, Kiyuku-sama."

Yorokobi raised his eyebrows at her, not so much in his typical dismay as in surprise. If anything, he should've been the one to have told Kiyuku-sama first – after all, he was supposed to be the sentimental one – but the way it happened felt right. Quite right indeed.

Kiyuku-sama continued to smile.

Later, when she'd said goodnight and had fallen into an impossible coma of sleep, Yorokobi and Mubōna snuck into her room one last time. Kiyuku-sama hadn't slept well in a long while, and to see her so still and calm under the sheets was somehow comforting. Like seeing a baby cuddled in its cot, perfectly content and without a pain in the world. Yorokobi ran his fingers through her hair.

They spoke in whispers.

"Do you think she's going to be okay?"

"Well shit, Mubōna. We're not leaving a puppy out in the cold."

"You're as sad as I am."

Yorokobi paused, gazing down at Kiyuku-sama's face. He stooped forward, planted a kiss against her cheek. "Not sad. We'll still be together."

"This has been nice though."

"Yeah," Yorokobi said, and smiled at Mubōna through the darkness. "Real nice."

Leaving behind nothing but a clipped peony in the kitchen, Mubōna and Yorokobi slipped out Kiyuku-sama's quarters into the night. Senbonzakura was at the door for them, somber and uncharacteristically quiet as they walked together to meet the other zanpakuto – to what would either be death or a return to their most natural state.

Senbonzakura slipped his hand into Mubōna's with permitted intimacy. He slapped Yorokobi on the back with a boyish playfulness that made Yorokobi shake his head. The three of them promised to see each other again soon, one way or another. They and their masters would see each other again soon.


	67. In Our Own Way

Chapter 67  
In Our Own Way

In a rare turn of events, Shunsui found Kiyuku-chan waiting outside his office – not a sign of paperwork on her person, no official severity across her face. Instead, an endearing picture of warmth in the near-summer air, like the first raindrop of the season. She smiled, making Shunsui swell with delight, and greeted him.

"We haven't gone for a walk in a while," she said. "I was hoping you had a few minutes."

A rare turn of events indeed. One to which Shunsui most gladly obliged.

While he was a common visitor to the fifth squad's quarters, Kiyuku-chan was a lesser seen sight in the eighth. As such, in amongst their small-talk – how lovely the flowers were at this time of year, how Kiyuku-chan's family was doing – a number of curious eyes turned their way. Nods of greeting. Polite smiles. Vague signs of recognition toward the girl who'd once been their squad's shy and pedantic third-seat: often seen, never much heard, now a successful captain.

All the while, with fluttering fingers, Kiyuku-chan absent-mindedly touched the zanpakuto at her side. It wasn't so much an anxious or an uncomfortable fidgeting as it was inquisitive, in quite the same way as one would glance at their reflection time and time again after a haircut. Same person, different face. Same sword, different feeling. In unconscious mimicry, Shunsui found himself doing the same.

"Strange, isn't it? To think we won't have them around anymore," he said, considering the reiatsu that pulsed from his sheathed zanpakuto through his fingers.

Kiyuku-chan hummed thoughtfully and paused beneath a tree. Luminescent in its shadow, grasping the handle of her sword, she said, "I don't know about 'strange' – more like unfamiliarly familiar. Not that that really makes much sense," she pondered aloud. "But it's not like they're not with us."

"True. Though I am going to miss drinking with such beautiful ladies as my Katen Kyōkotsu."

Kiyuku-chan's lips did a smirk-like twitch. "You'll survive, I'm sure."

"But I've gotten used to that kind of lifestyle," Shunsui grinned. "Perhaps now, for the sake of my health, you and Nanao-chan ought to come drink with me more often"

"Perhaps."

Much to Shunsui's surprise, there was no sense of irony in Kiyuku-chan's voice. Eyes all soft and dewy, she looked up into the branches of the tree and sighed. Her fingers continued to thrum against her sword, perhaps soaking up the lively feel of the reiatsu that until now had been missing.

"You didn't want to join the lieutenants yesterday?" Shunsui questioned, watching her. "When they went to help our zanpakuto in their fight?"

"So you knew about that?"

"Of course. I assume you did as well."

"Mubōna and Yorokobi didn't do a very good job of being subtle in their goodbyes."

"Ah, so you got to say goodbye then."

"Yes." A wistful haze crossed Kiyuku-chan's features. She smiled at nothing. "In our own way."

Shunsui chuckled. "Wonderful."

They circled around the tree, headed down another one of the garden paths in the same direction as the breeze. Having fallen into a silence – calm, unpressured – Shunsui peaked out from the corners of his eyes at Kiyuku-chan: at her features carefully held in a faraway mask. She was thinking, he could tell. What about, on the other hand, he couldn't so much as guess.

While Kiyuku-chan's lovely, little face had always been one of the more expressive Shunsui had seen – a sharp pout for disgust, a crinkled nose for embarrassment; even her cheeks had a different shade according to the situation – it wasn't always so clear what lay behind such expressions. Her reactions tended not to be proportionate to the thing itself. In the face of mortal catastrophe, she could have been calm as a monk; after skipping a meal, she could have been on the war path. Like murky water. It was easy to see the muddied stream; it wasn't so easy to see the rock behind it all.

Shunsui was about to broach the subject of her mind. His lips were parted and the sound was in his throat, but Kiyuku-chan beat him to it.

"Kyoraku-taichou," she said in a soft, sweet voice. "Can I ask you something?"

"Always, Kiyuku-chan."

She chewed on her words for a moment, perhaps reconsidering the question. There was a furrowing in her brow. A pensive purse to her lips. When she looked to Shunsui, he could tell she'd been mulling over it for a while. "Hypothetically speaking," she emphasised, "do you think it's possible for two people to be just friends if one is in love with the other?"

It had been months now. Shunsui had wondered how long it would take for her to start asking these questions – how long it would take before the mourning for young love gave way to resigned acceptance. Not that Shunsui really thought there was anything to accept. Katen agreed. Byakuya had broken Kiyuku-chan's heart precisely _because he loved her_, just like the moon falling for the sun each night.

But Shunsui was in no position to tell her that.

Under Kiyuku-chan's expectant gaze, Shunsui touched the tip of his hat in a farce of casual interest. "Hypothetically, you say?"

"Yes. _Hypothetically_."

For a split second, he considered telling her that it was absolutely possible – that two people could go on as though nothing at all had ever happened between them and it wouldn't hurt in the least, that it would be better even. At least, even if it was not in the way she wanted, Kiyuku-chan would be able to spend her life with the man she loved. Shunsui thought he could tell her that.

But he didn't believe it and he wouldn't lie to her.

"Then no."

Her eyes widened and it was possible to pinpoint the exact moment her heart dropped into her stomach. Perhaps she'd come looking for different words. Perhaps she'd already made up her mind about an answer and only needed to hear it upon someone else's voice.

"Why not?" she murmured.

"Because it would be chaos to the mind and poison to the heart. A person in love will forever be stuck thinking about how much more they want – always hoping, always wishing." Shunsui sighed. "Honestly, I think no friendship at all is better than a friendship that could never be enough."

"But… _But_…" Kiyuku-chan interjected, shaky with concealed desperation. "In the case of friendship, would it not be better for a starving man to eat bruised apples than to eat nothing at all?"

Shunsui smiled at her. Clever Kiyuku-chan, with all her metaphors. "The heart isn't as simple as the stomach."

"But what if the person in love would just be grateful to have the other person around? You know, the lesser pain. What if they could swallow the hope that something more would come of their friendship?"

"No one can do that, Kiyuku-chan."

"Yes, I can."

In spite of the impassioned rose-tint that had blossomed across her cheeks, Kiyuku-chan didn't seem to realise what she'd just said. She stared at Shunsui, waiting once again for an answer, and he could only continue to smile in return. Clever _and _stubborn. Obviously she _had _come here with her mind made up. There was nothing he could say that would change her mind. He didn't particularly want to either – after all, his answer had been for the hypothetical situation, not the real one.

There was too much history in the way Byakuya looked at Kiyuku-chan, too heavy a backlog of emotion for things to stay as they were.

Shunsui saw it – he knew he wasn't the only one. Perhaps Byakuya and Kiyuku-chan would try being friends and realise the impossibility of it for _both _of them.

Perhaps, in their own way, they would figure themselves out.


	68. Mission

Chapter 68  
Mission

Byakuya had not expected Kiyuku to be there.

Entering into the Assembly Hall, he'd been perfectly on time. Seeing her, he'd done his best to remain composed – however, though she offered him a thin and genuine smile of greeting, Kiyuku's own surprise was palpable. She tilted her head at him with the look of a question mark. Raised her eyebrows in curiosity. Then, promptly, before Byakuya could properly take her in, she returned her attention to the Captain-Commander.

"Aramiya-taichou. Kuchiki-taichou. Thank you for coming to see me," Yamamoto said.

So it wasn't some sort of mistake that Kiyuku was there too.

Strange. The fifth and sixth squads didn't generally have any business with each other.

Next to Byakuya, it was clear that Kiyuku was nervous. Her fingers fiddled with restless unease behind her back, plucking and clicking like ten small children. She stood straighter than a pole. Was blanched white. This was the first time she'd been summoned for a private meeting with the Commander, Byakuya realised. Such a thing only tended to happen when one was in trouble – like the time Byakuya lost his haori in the Invasion of Hueco Mundo. Kiyuku was a sort of teacher's-pet. Of course she'd be nervous about getting into trouble.

"I will not waste time with formalities," the Captain-Commander asserted plainly. "It seems a rogue zanpakuto has escaped from the Soul Society into the Human World, somewhere in the areas surrounding Tokyo. You two will leave tomorrow evening to see to it that the matter is resolved."

Just like that.

Byakuya couldn't decide what to say. For one, he was thoroughly irritated – he had no time nor any interest in going to the Human World; more than that, the situation regarding the zanpakuto was supposed to be finished and done, a closed book on a high shelf. How much longer was the whole thing going to drag itself out?

On the other hand though, Kiyuku would be with him. Just the two of them in the Human World. A whole other can of worms – one which seemed to open itself up in Byakuya's stomach.

"Excuse me, Yamamoto-dono," Kiyuku said, obviously more confident, now that she was relieved. "The areas around Tokyo are under the thirteenth and tenth squad's jurisdiction. Shouldn't they be handling this?"

"Are you questioning me, Aramiya-taichou?"

"No, sir. Just wondering."

_Very _confident, now that she was relieved. Enough so that maybe she would end up in trouble.

Byakuya felt his lips twitch.

The Captain-Commander hummed, gaze fixed rigidly enough upon Kiyuku that her feather-light bones may well have shattered beneath it. "Ukitake-taichou is currently unwell and Hitsugaya-taichou has other important matters to be attending to."

"What about the lieutenants?" Kiyuku pressed.

"Quiet now, girl. This was my order – prepare whatever you will need and report to the Senkaimon tomorrow evening. That is all." Yamamoto rapped his cane against the floor. Byakuya and Kiyuku, like naughty school children, were dismissed with the echoing thud of finality.

In silence, they walked together through the first squad's barracks. Side-by-side, a disconcerting chasm in the small space that separated them. All the while, Byakuya replayed in his mind their last meeting – _I don't want to __**just**__ be friends_, she'd said, very nearly in tears – feeling perhaps that he ought to say something. He didn't really want to apologise, didn't really want to bring it up at all. But, a ruthless little boy, he'd ripped the scab from a carefully tended wound. All Kiyuku's hard work, and to a certain extent his own, bludgeoned because of reckless impulsivity.

They were both in a mess. If they were going to go to the Human World together – which, at this stage, didn't seem to be a matter up for debate – Byakuya had to at the very least try to make things right. One way or another. Even if it made him nauseous with longing.

"I must apologise for the other day," Byakuya said. "It was irresponsible of me."

Kiyuku turned her gaze to him and, in such a way that Byakuya felt certain he would topple over, she smiled. "Don't worry about it." Smooth, sweet. Still the same tone with which she spoke to every other captain – but at least it wasn't the tortured chime of Byakuya's dreams. "I've been thinking about what you said, actually. About us being friends."

"Oh?"

"I'd like that."

Byakuya blinked. This was not what he'd been expecting. "You'd like us to be friends?"

"Very much so."

As lovely as she was, there was something thoroughly wrong about the whole thing. A falseness that Byakuya couldn't quite put his finger on – she said it all with much too much ease, sounded way too sure of herself considering how just days ago she'd seemed ready to spit venom into his eyes. Perhaps it was just Byakuya's imagination though. Maybe he actually wanted her to fight with him again.

Nonetheless, he nodded. "I'm glad."

"Great," she grinned and sent shattering adoration through Byakuya's bones. _Her friend_. He had no idea how he was supposed to manage that. Suddenly serious, Kiyuku continued, "Now let's talk technicalities. I know the done-thing is to stay with Kurosaki Ichigo or his friends in the Human World, but I would sooner pull my finger nails off than do that."

Byakuya didn't stop the corner of his mouth from turning upwards. "Absolutely."

"There's these things called hotels," Kiyuku touched her chin as she considered this. "Apparently they do buffet breakfasts."

"I have no objections to a hotel."

Once more, Kiyuku beamed with childish delight. "Wonderful. I'll make reservations then."


	69. Hotel Room

Chapter 69  
Hotel Room

_Ting_.

Much like the lobby, the elevator was done up in golds and crystals – which, all things considered, was overkill for an _elevator_. The porter stood smiling and silent at the doors.

_Ting_.

Kiyuku, milky-limbed and lovely in a pale blue dress, was still red-faced at Byakuya's side. The clerk at the front desk had referred to them as Mister and Missus Aramiya, to which Byakuya had shot Kiyuku an unintendedly harsh look. If they were going to be mistaken for a married couple, the humans could at least have the courtesy to use _his _last name.

_Ting_.

Though Kiyuku was sure she'd asked for separate rooms, they'd each been given a card with the _same room number_.

_**Ting.**_

__"Fifteenth floor, Mister and Missus Aramiya," the porter said, marvelously oblivious. "Your suite is just this way."

Byakuya and Kiyuku followed the man down the corridor. White walls were hung with artwork while the carpets flaunted curious patterns. Wordlessly, Byakuya glanced down at Kiyuku – the ruffles of the dress bounced against her shoulders, were low around her chest. He could smell the blossomy softness of her perfume. Could hear the faint tap of her sandaled feet against the floor.

Back in the lobby, two men had glanced her way. Perhaps because she was an oddity amongst the other women, who marched about with tans and heeled shoes about as tall as Kiyuku herself. Or perhaps it was simply because she was the most stunning thing these human men would ever see. Like a diamond. A little blue flower in murk.

Either way, Byakuya had been so overcome with an urge to pull her against him – a possessive show, a jealous farce – it was almost irresistible.

The urge to do so was no less strong now.

At the end of the corridor, the porter inserted a card into a door. There was a beep. A click. Smilingly, he stepped aside. "Our executive suite, Mister and Missus Aramiya. I trust it will be to your liking. If you are in need of any assistance, please do not hesitate to contact the concierge, whose details are in the booklet in the living area. Compliments of the hotel, you will find a bottle of our finest champagne in the–"

"Okay. Thank you," Kiyuku slid past the porter and held the door readily. "We won't be needing anything else."

Unperturbed by what must have been an odd sense of authority in such a small woman, the porter gave a slight bow and left. Kiyuku shut the door.

Out the window, there was a sweeping view of Tokyo. Buildings amongst trees amongst taller buildings. Outside, it was hazy and grey beneath thick clouds, dark enough that the golden light of the room was reflected in the window's glass. Byakuya pretended to look out at the Human World while in reality, he watched Kiyuku's reflection scurry around the corner into what was the bedroom.

He sighed, having already been in there himself – when Kiyuku emerged again, she was charmingly wide-eyed and no less red than she'd been in the elevator.

"Don't look so flustered," Byakuya said as he turned to face her. "You're making me nervous."

"There's only one bed."

"I know."

Kiyuku bit her lip. "I can ask for another room."

"No need." Byakuya gestured to the couches between which he stood. "I'll sleep here."

With a sinking look of disgrace – lips turning downwards in a dejected curve while her brow furrowed in frustration – Kiyuku looked like a small dog scolded for chasing its tail. She was kissably flushed; the blue of her dress, sweetly dotted by pink flowers, was the same shade as her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she murmured.

"Don't be. It's not anything serious." In an attempt to reassure her, Byakuya smiled. Only slightly; just enough for Kiyuku to blink at him in surprise. "Now that we're here though, we need to get to business. Have you checked the levels of reiatsu in the area?"

Kiyuku, looking relieved to have changed the subject, nodded.

"And?"

"There was nothing," she said, confounded. "Not within a twenty five kilometer radius. Which means the rogue zanpakuto is either able to conceal its reiatsu or it's moved out of our vicinity." Kiyuku paused, waited for Byakuya to say something. When he didn't, she tilted her head and frowned. "I'm going to Karakura Town tomorrow. To meet with Urahara Kisuke – I might have to make contact with some of Kurosaki Ichigo's friends as well."

Staring, Byakuya raised an eyebrow at her. "Why would you do that?"

"The rogue zanpakuto would probably head to Karakura Town because of the reishi density. In which case, Urahara Kisuke would be able to give us information."

"I was referring to the matter of Kurosaki's friends."

At this, Kiyuku scowled. She moved to the couches and seated herself across from Byakuya –shamelessly, his eyes lingered on the carved curves of her legs as she crossed them. The dress gathered in delicate waves around her thighs. There was a set of bruises alone her calf. Such perfect, lithe limbs.

"Your sister asked me to deliver a message to Kurosaki Ichigo."

Byakuya, half-reluctantly, ripped his attention from the white skin of Kiyuku's legs to her face, which appeared as unimpressed as he was perturbed. "Excuse me?"

"A letter. From Rukia for Kurosaki. I need to deliver it," Kiyuku's nose crinkled. "I originally told Rukia I'm not a messenger pigeon. But she asked so nicely – she also asked me not to tell you, actually."

"And yet," Byakuya droned, shaking his head, "you just did."

To which Kiyuku smiled, a teasing glimmer appearing and just as quickly disappearing from her eyes. "Well, yes. We're friends, aren't we?"

Considering this, Byakuya glanced to the king-sized bed around the corner, where pristine white sheets lay undisturbed. A friend would probably not have ruminated over its implications – over thoughts of how easily those sheets could be mussed. How delightful a naked redhead would look in such a confusion of bedding, sighing his name. Being ravished by his lips and hands and every other part of his body. Indeed, not particularly friend-like thoughts, though they were but harmless inanities.

Nonetheless, as Kiyuku rose again from the chair, Byakuya found himself burdened by a sense of relief and disappointment that was close to pain. They were alone together in a luxury hotel room. She was stunning and contradictory – friend and almost-lover; adored and desired, but feared for the recklessness she inspired in him. It _was _reckless, the mere fact that he didn't insist on a separate room – assigning himself to the couch didn't make her any less accessible; innocent and oblivious as Kiyuku may have been, it didn't make the sensual slope any less slippery.

With eyes fixed on the flutter of her dress around her thighs, Byakuya watched Kiyuku walk across the hotel room toward a desk. An ice bucket lay in wait upon it, the neck of a champagne bottle peeking out. Kiyuku wrapped her fingers around the champagne and, bringing it to her face, considered the label.

"By the way," she said, sending pinpricks down Byakuya's arms. She looked at him, grinning with awkward uncertainty. "There were little chocolates on the bed. I ate them both. Sorry."


	70. Sugar Daddy

**A/N: Hello again everybody! An enormous thankie to those of you who have left reviews - it always makes my day to hear what you have to say. :)  
Here we are with Chapter 70 and, I am sad to announce, not long to go before the end of the story... Will our captains make up and make out in time? Keep reading and reviewing, and perhaps they will! :P**

Chapter 70  
Sugar Daddy

The previous night, Kiyuku had tossed and turned at every hour, poised and ready for anything – though 'anything' had ended up being nothing and she'd only spent an insufferable amount of time alone in an insufferably large bed. All the way to Karakura Town that morning, Kiyuku had monitored the levels of reiatsu: staring hard into the screen of her mobile, considering each beep, waiting in agitated anticipation for an alarm. Still, there was nothing.

She tried to reassure herself. They'd only been in the Human World for one day; it would likely take some time for the rogue zanpakuto to show. Especially if it knew that two captain-class Shinigami were after it. Try as she might, however, Kiyuku agonized constantly over the sneaking feeling that it was all some wild goose chase. Either the rogue zanpakuto had vanished quite spontaneously and there was nothing to worry about, or it was in some part of the world that may or may not have been under Kiyuku or Byakuya's jurisdiction.

Of course, there was no way the Captain-Commander would have sent the two of them to the Human World for nothing – but _still_.

Urahara Kisuke hadn't noticed anything strange either. He had promised to keep Kiyuku informed of any unusual activity in Karakura Town, though he too suspected that the rogue zanpakuto had probably made its way elsewhere. After which, he'd given Kiyuku a uniform for her visit to Karakura High School and had cooed with incensing perversion once she'd put it on – _My! Aren't you just the cutest little captain I've ever seen?_

At the thought, Kiyuku huffed. 'Cute' was a word for children or small animals: those creatures that were sweetly defenseless and huggable. Not for her, a noblewoman and Shinigami captain – one who was anything but defenseless, even clad in such a ridiculous school uniform. With growing irritation Kiyuku tugged the all-too-short skirt, fiddled with the envelope Rukia had given her.

She'd been waiting for ages now.

Apparently, Kurosaki Ichigo and his friends usually spent their lunch breaks on the school roof.

Kurosaki Ichigo and his friends should have been there by now.

Kurosaki Ichigo and his friends were late for their own lunch break and Kiyuku didn't have time to waste waiting for school children, especially not on the unshaded top of a concrete block.

Face dropping into a scowl, frustrated and perturbed by the day's painful lack of productivity, Kiyuku skulked across the roof. Back to the door to the stairs. To leave and get _something _purposeful done before meeting Byakuya back at the hotel. Only, upon opening the door to exit a number of voices echoed up the stairway, ever closer and ever louder. Laughter of the teenage years. Some excited shouts. Then, dominant and calm over the voices of his friends, was the one Kiyuku had been waiting for.

Making no effort to conceal her impatience, Kiyuku called out his name as she would that of a disobedient subordinate.

It went silent in the stairway, as though one in the group had been swiftly and skillfully struck dead. There were some mutters. A rapid of series of clangs as somebody rushed up the last of the metallic steps. Then, bright with a look of excited disbelief, Kurosaki Ichigo gazed up at Kiyuku.

"It's you! Kiyuku-san!"

"Aramiya_-_taichou," Kiyuku corrected, frowning as she moved for Ichigo to exit the darkness of the stairwell.

He did so without any sense of urgency, as though he hadn't already wasted a tremendous amount of her time. "What are you doing here?" he questioned. "Is everything okay in Soul Society?"

"Everything is fine." Kiyuku held out the envelope. "I'm only here to give you this."

"What is it?"

"It's from Rukia."

Ichigo's eyes softened. "Rukia?"

"Ah!" came another voice. An unknown boy launched himself from the stairwell, turning an excited and curious gaze onto Kiyuku. He grinned at her, came close enough that she felt about ready to punch him, and asked with boyish thrill, "Are you one of Rukia-chan's friends?"

"Don't get too close, Keigo," Ichigo said as he took the envelope, shooting a disarming smile at Kiyuku. "She bites."

More friends emerged from the stairway like chickens from a coop, casting inquisitive looks and bobbing their heads in greeting. Kiyuku recognised the Quincy – whose curt acknowledgement did nothing to alleviate her tension – and the burly one named Sado – more man than boy, as well as the only one Kiyuku could stomach on account of his unassuming character. The third friend, who was small and apparently more level-headed, was unfamiliar and quick in introducing himself.

"Kojima Mizuiro," he said warmly. "And you?"

"Aramiya Kiyuku."

"You have a lovely air about you, Aramiya-san. Very sophisticated – are you from out of town?"

Kiyuku raised an eyebrow, felt an invisible thread pulling at the corner of her mouth. 'Out of town' was an understatement; 'sophisticated' was fairly on point though.

Ichigo, with a groan, rolled his eyes. "Don't bother with your womanizing, Mizuiro. She's from Soul Society."

Luckily for him, Kiyuku had been informed previously about these friends – that they were privy to the existence of Soul Society and the Shinigami, that they'd witnessed the entirety of Aizen's attack on fake Karakura Town – otherwise, such a blasé statement would probably have driven Kiyuku to push Ichigo off the roof. Indeed, he was fortunate to be graced with nothing more than a glare.

"Soul Society! I see," Mizuiro cocked his head. "How's Rukia?"

"She's well enough, I suppose," Kiyuku said, the taste of the words bland and disinterested upon her tongue. "Please excuse me. I wouldn't want to interrupt your lunch break."

Before she could turn to leave, however, Ichigo placed a hand on her shoulder. "Kiyuku-san."

"_Aramiya-taichou_." Kiyuku scowled. "What is it?"

Ichigo held up the letter from Rukia, looking serious. "Thank you for this."

"Don't worry about it."

"If it's not too much trouble, would you be able to come back here tomorrow?"

Shooting him a look, Kiyuku just about spat, "I'm here on a mission, Kurosaki Ichigo. I don't just have time to spare."

"I know. But if you _do _have time, I'd like to send a message back for Rukia." In such a way that Kiyuku felt her heart jump into her throat, Ichigo almost seemed to be pleading – as though realising that, for the first time, he was utterly helpless and completely at Kiyuku's mercy. Like the human boy he was. Without power. Lacking options. Desperate enough for word to reach Rukia that he would resort to such pitiable expressions. "Please."

And, for the first time, Kiyuku realised she felt sorry for him. Or rather, she felt burdened with the same intimate responsibility as she'd felt with Rukia – had the roles been reversed, had she been barred by subjection from reaching the ones she loved, perhaps she too would have negotiated. Pleaded. Hoped as Ichigo seemed to do so now. Shaking his hand off her shoulder, Kiyuku let forth a resigned sigh. "Fine. I'll be at the entrance of the school tomorrow morning."

With that, having committed only half-reluctantly to this second meeting, she ignored Ichigo's thanks and marched down through the dimness of the stairway. She listened to the metallic clatter of her own footsteps: a rhythmic overtone to the echoes of loud voices.

"She's a captain, then? She's cute." _Cute_. There was that word again. "Has she got a boyfriend, Ichigo?"

"So remember I told you about Rukia's brother…?"

"No way!"

"Ah! Both Rukia _and _her brother have a thing for red-heads."

Warmth rose to Kiyuku's cheeks and, in an impatient attempt to flee from the grip of such thoughts, she quickened her pace.

What one would usually call the gift of hindsight now felt rather more like a curse. Only now that she considered it did Kiyuku realise why she'd relented in the face of such requests: at the Senkaimon, where Rukia had slipped the envelope into her hand – _Please, Aramiya-taichou. I know I shouldn't be asking you this… – _there was a desperate vulnerability, a yearning that Kiyuku had subconsciously recognised as her own. Rukia's hopeful request, Ichigo's understated plea, both were rung with the same affliction as Kiyuku had felt the night she'd told Byakuya she loved him.

Back then, Kiyuku would certainly have done anything to have gotten Byakuya back.

Back then. Probably now too.

Lost in these thoughts, Kiyuku didn't notice herself drift out into the school yard. The sun shone down in relentless whiteness. Small groups chattered around her, looking much more at home in their school uniforms than she felt, and a few wandering eyes fell upon her before promptly falling away again.

"Aramiya-chan!"

Bubbly and full-hearted. Unlike Ichigo's over-familiarity, this particular address did not bother Kiyuku – on the contrary, she was almost delighted when she looked over her shoulder to find Inoue Orihime chasseing towards her, trailed once again by a pair of faces Kiyuku didn't know.

After having met Orihime in the fight against Muramasa, Kiyuku's heart had nearly exploded from overexposure to sweetness. _This _was a girl that was 'cute'. _This _was a human she actually liked. Not to say Kiyuku was any more pleased about Orihime's involvement in Shinigami affairs as she was about Ichigo's, of course; however, her loveliness made her a lot more agreeable to deal with. Frankly, Kiyuku wouldn't have minded bottling a note of Orihime's voice and keeping it on a shelf.

"Hime-chan! You never told us you had such a pretty friend," one of the other girls cooed, eying Kiyuku with a discomforting glimmer behind her glasses.

The other friend, looking like a boy with her short-cropped hair, punched the first through the shoulder. "Shut up, you weirdo!"

"Are you here on a mission, Aramiya-chan?" Orihime asked sweetly.

Kiyuku, trying to ignore the suggestiveness with which the spectacled friend eyed her, nodded. "A rogue zanpakuto may be around here. We're not sure of its whereabouts yet." Kiyuku tilted her head. "You haven't noticed a strange reiatsu, by any chance?"

Orihime hummed, tapping her chin with the tip of her finger as she thought. Then, looking regretful, she shook her head. "If you need a place to stay though, I'd definitely be able to help you out with that! I could even cook you dinner – tonight I was going to make a watermelon and bean-paste mousse."

"As delightful as that sounds…" Kiyuku began, fully not meaning it, "I've actually got accommodation organised."

"No! Let's have a sleepover!" The spectacled friend, freed from the other's tyrannical grip, pounced with feline readiness. She wrapped her arms around Kiyuku, pressed Kiyuku's head firmly against her chest. "Let's get to know each other, Aramiya-chan. Just you, me, and Hime-chan!"

"Chizuru!" Orihime cried. "Don't do that!"

Orihime was lovely. Her friend was weird in grotesque proportions.

The girl squealed and Kiyuku felt her cheeks burn into violent colour. She tried to push herself free, grasped this Chizuru's arms in an attempt to shove her away – but the girl had her in a vice-grip and was ignoring Orihime and her other friend's protestations. Never in any sort of situation had Kiyuku forgotten all her combat training; under any other circumstances, she would have been able to break her captor's neck in a single movement; however, the shock of being held against another woman's breasts, of being harassed in a way that no other person would have _dared _to try, Kiyuku went utterly and helplessly blank.

At the violation of her personal space, she could have cried. At the feeling of defilement, she was certain she'd be sick.

Perhaps that was why the voice that followed, deep and steely and so familiar it sent goosebumps down Kiyuku's spine, seemed extraordinarily god-like.

"Please step away from the girl."

Her captor's arms going slack around her neck, the situation settling into silence, Kiyuku glanced out at the saviour to whom the voice belonged.

Byakuya. Darling, wonderful, marvelous Byakuya, who glared with enough venom at the Chizuru girl to make her release Kiyuku instantly. Why he was there, Kiyuku wasn't sure – why he was in a tailored, white suit with a silk shirt to match, Kiyuku was equally uncertain, though she wasn't about to complain about it just as much as she wasn't going to complain about his arrival.

The Chizuru girl leaned toward her, whispering with an almost comical sense of awe, "Oh my _gosh_. Is that your sugar daddy?"

_Sugar daddy_. The words were rung with a syrupy sickness. Kiyuku felt her brow furrow as she tore her gaze from Byakuya to question Chizuru. "A sugar… My what?"

"Oh. Nevermind."

"Are you done here, Kiyuku?" Byakuya demanded in turn, continuing to glare at the Chizuru girl as she wilted and disappeared behind her other friend.

Indeed, Kiyuku was done here. For now. Until tomorrow. Until she had to assume the role of messenger pigeon once again. Recovering from her bout of what had surely been sexual harassment, Kiyuku turned to smile at Orihime. "Goodbye, Inoue-san. I hope you keep well."

"Oh, okay! Bye. Please come for dinner anytime!"

_Sugar daddy_. The words continued to pester Kiyuku as she and Byakuya walked in unstrained silence away from the school. _Was_ Byakuya her 'sugar daddy'? He wasn't her father; he may have been decently older than Kiyuku, but not nearly old enough to be anything close to her dad. That much was obvious, so it couldn't possibly have referred to being relatives. Perhaps it had more to do with sugar than parenthood – had the Chizuru girl been asking if Byakuya was some sort of candy-man?

Turning her eyes onto Byakuya, Kiyuku considered this. His hair was loose in glossy blackness around his face; the silk shirt was unbuttoned at the top to reveal a tease of his throat and chest; the white suit, though by all means stylish and professional, made Byakuya look unequivocally attractive – the sort that screamed _throw me against the king-sized bed back at the hotel_.

If this was what a candy-man looked like in the Human World, Kiyuku wouldn't mind spending a lot more time in candy shops.

Though she doubted that was what was meant by 'sugar daddy'.

Swallowing the sense of embarrassment at her ignorance, she broached the subject aloud. "Kuchiki-san?"

"Hmm?"

"What's a sugar-daddy?"

Not pausing in his walk, Byakuya raised his eyebrows at Kiyuku. "A _what_?"

"So you don't know either then," Kiyuku sighed.

"It must be some sort of human slang. There's a computer in the hotel room. We'll look it up."

Satisfied for the moment – both with the fact that she wasn't the only one who was uninformed and that she would get an answer soon enough – Kiyuku continued onto the next question. "Speaking of the hotel room, I thought we were supposed to meet back there. Why are you in Karakura Town?"

"There was no sign of the zanpakuto's reiatsu in or around Kagamino City. I thought to come here, in case you needed help with anything." The corner of his mouth twisting upwards, Byakuya gave a near-imperceptible smirk. "Which, considering the state I found you in, you did."

The warmth returned to Kiyuku's cheeks. She rolled her eyes. "I could have handled it."

"I'm sure."

"I just didn't want to hurt the girl."

"Of course."

Kiyuku huffed, bit the inside of her cheek. Trying to be subtle so that Byakuya wouldn't notice, she tugged again at the school skirt – perhaps just not subtly enough.

"This uniform suits you," Byakuya said with unexpected softness. "You look very cute."

That was the third time today. Third time lucky, too, for now Kiyuku relished the compliment. Though she knew perfectly well that it shouldn't have made her stomach tumble and disperse into a hundred butterflies – she and Byakuya were making an attempt at being friends, and friends could compliment each other without it being anything more than platonic – she felt about ready to wear the ridiculous school uniform for the rest of her life.

Back in the hotel room, they did a cursory look-up of what a 'sugar daddy' was supposed to be. After some wide-eyed murmuring – as well as red-faced giggles on Kiyuku's part – it was quickly established that Byakuya was most certainly _not _her sugar daddy. He did, however, joke that he was close enough to it, having paid for their hotel room – and Kiyuku, uncertain whether she was more embarrassed or thrilled by the thought, screamed into one of the couch pillows.

Once again, she failed to fall asleep that night within the hugeness of the bed. The sheets felt foreign and wrong, and she was plagued by the impending sense that she and Byakuya were not doing enough. About the rogue zanpakuto, that is. Not that there was much more to do other than wait. And wait, and wait.

Kiyuku kicked off the blankets. Pulled them back on. Sleeping in such an immense, empty bed was like floating on an ocean alone. Wrapped within the room's sterile darkness. Listening to the faint echo of human traffic outside the window. So very alone.

Laying on her side, Kiyuku stared out into the living area. The shape of the couches were cut in half by the walls, everything obscured and shadowy. However, like an anchoring light, Kiyuku could see Byakuya's feet peeking out from his blanket as he slept. A pair of still, perfect feet. It was hard to say how long she gazed at them, willing her eyes to stay open when they threatened to close lest she should miss his feet flexing or pointing or doing anything at all.

They were friends, her tired mind reminded her. Byakuya was her friend and it wasn't so bad. It wasn't so bad.

It wasn't exactly what she wanted, but it wasn't so bad.


	71. Hot Chocolate

Chapter 71  
Hot Chocolate

Awake and aching for food, Kiyuku had whispered her requests over the phone to a rather confused concierge – _you want __**what **__for breakfast, Missus Aramiya? _Indeed, the sun hadn't so much as peaked over the cityscape as yet and Byakuya was still asleep on the couch. However, just the previous night, Kiyuku had learned about a thing called 'room service': round-the-clock catering for all one's foody whims. In light of her cramping stomach and the fresh set of cravings that plagued her, Kiyuku saw no better opportunity than now to try it out.

And what an excellent idea it was!

Breakfast was delivered on a silver tray with fine yellow roses on the side. _Exactly as requested_, the porters had assured her. Smiling, surprisingly bright-eyed for such an early hour, and perhaps somewhat uncertain of her order if they'd felt the need to reassure her of its exactness.

Now, cross-legged upon the couch, Kiyuku sipped her hot chocolate – in which a pink multitude of marshmallows bopped – and considered the oddities before her. Bananas. A lush pool of melted dark chocolate. Multicolored sprinkles like a shattered rainbow. She'd laid these ingredients across the coffee table as though they were splendid treasures, each plate and bowl angled in such a way that Byakuya would be able to see all of them the moment he woke up.

He did not look particularly comfortable on the couch. Of course, Kiyuku had offered several times to switch with him; considering how she was hardly three-quarters his size, she would probably have had a much easier time sleeping in his place. Nonetheless, he'd refused, and had continued to lay sprawled across the couch at awkward angles. Pillows had been flung across the floor. The blanket was skew, scrunched beneath his face and falling off from the middle of his back – which was a fortunate arrangement since it afforded Kiyuku a view of his legs in the pajama shorts so kindly provided by the hotel.

As he slept, he drew slow, steady breaths, occasionally making a sound that was somewhere between a moan and a snore.

'Soft' was the word that came to mind. Soft like a little boy, lids fluttering lightly as he slept and arms clutching the blanket around his face. Soft and defenseless, kind of beautiful.

Kiyuku could not restrain a smile, nor the yearning to lean her head next to his. To brush away the hair that fell in all directions against his face. She sipped her hot chocolate again, considering how likely it was that Byakuya would wake up if she kissed his cheek or if she ran her fingers down his hamstrings. She tried to imagine the feeling – smooth, white skin beneath her fingertips; the firmness of relaxed muscle. If she was gentle enough, if she pressed her lips just-so against the strong line of Byakuya's back, perhaps she'd be able to get away with it. Perhaps he wouldn't wake up and she'd have committed the perfect crime. Wandering hands. A stolen touch in the morning's dim light. The perfect crime, indeed.

Into her cup, Kiyuku sighed wistfully.

Byakuya sighed too, and grumbled while rolling his head against the couch. His eyes drifted open; he stared for some moments in a disoriented daze at Kiyuku. "Why are you up?" he questioned dully.

"Breakfast," Kiyuku grinned.

Lifting his head slightly, as though to get a better view, Byakuya considered the food items across the coffee table. There was a rumbling in his throat – a tired hum – and he looked back to Kiyuku with a peculiar darkness about his eyes. "You're still in pajamas."

"Yes."

"Aren't you supposed to be leaving soon for Karakura Town?"

"Not anytime soon."

Byakuya raised his eyebrows, pushing himself up into a sitting position. His hair was a silky mess. The blanket wrapped itself awkwardly around his thighs. Glancing to the closed curtains, through which no light shone, and then back to Kiyuku, he asked in such a way that he already seemed to know the answer, "What time is it?"

"Last I checked, it was four fifteen," Kiyuku said unabashedly.

"Good grief."

"Sorry. I couldn't sleep."

The immensity of the bed made her feel seasick – there was no other way to describe it: to be lost in amongst the waves of the sheets, an expanse of space all around her that she simply couldn't fill, it all made Kiyuku feel as though she was drifting. Lost and lonely. Naturally, she realised the ridiculousness of such a thing. Where most would have relished a king-sized abundance of leg-room, she decried it as unsettling. Unsettling enough that it set her stomach in knots. On top of which, there was still no sign of the rogue zanpakuto, which only managed to make Kiyuku more anxious.

She explained these things to Byakuya, who listened with features downturned. Though he said nothing, he appeared thoughtful and concerned – an expression which tacitly spurred Kiyuku on in her tale of bedtime woes and pedantic concerns. To conclude, she gestured to the food items across the table with delight, "So I thought I'd try out the room service and ordered us breakfast. The concierge was very obliging."

"I'm sure this was a first for him," Byakuya uttered as he eyed out the bananas.

"Maybe," Kiyuku shrugged. "Do you want one now? The chocolate is still melted… _and _I asked for sprinkles."

"It's too early for breakfast."

"Hot chocolate then?"

Byakuya shook his head at her – a sign of incredulity rather than a refusal. "You ordered hot chocolate as well?"

"Yes. With pink marshmallows."

She was met with a look of subtle disgust.

"What?" Kiyuku cried. "Don't you like hot chocolate?"

"Not particularly," Byakuya said.

"Something is _very _wrong with you." Kiyuku refilled her cup, the hot chocolate still steaming and smelling of sweetness, and dropped marshmallows onto its surface. Then, rising from the couch, darting around the coffee table, she stood before Byakuya – in the space between his legs, looking down at him as he looked up at her – and held the beverage out. "Just try it," she cooed.

He raised an eyebrow. "I've tried hot chocolate before."

"Try it again. I'll force it down your throat if I have to."

A sigh. Byakuya took the cup from her hands – and, for only the shortest moment, so slight that it may well have been unintentional, his fingers grazed hers. The marshmallows were melting into pink trails of foam. Kiyuku realised she was close enough to touch Byakuya without so much as stretching out her arm. While he considered the hot chocolate, swirling it in his hand as though it were wine, Kiyuku considered him. Glossy in the dimness, his angular features less regal and surprisingly delicate – cheek bones of bone china; jaw of porcelain.

So stunning they demanded touching – stroking – kissing.

Oh. _Fuck. _

Without so much as sipping the hot chocolate, Byakuya leaned around Kiyuku and placed the cup back upon the table. Ribs just next to her fingers. Body stretched out and vulnerable – his flesh was so thinly hidden by the hotel pajamas, nearer to hers than it had been in months. Glancing downwards, sucking in a sharp breath, Kiyuku watched the sinews of Byakuya's neck stiffen and relax – and, with painful clarity, entertained the urge to press her tongue against the mounds and crevices of his shoulders.

_Fuckfuckfuck_.

"Force it down my throat all you want–" Byakuya resumed the original position, his chest and hers in a parallel separation so easily closed. Kiyuku licked her lips, and he blinked at her. "Are you alright?"

It was too late – or was it too early? – for such a question. She felt pale and dizzy, numbly trembling against the distance that had developed between them.

In a beguiled instant, Kiyuku snaked her hands into the curves between Byakuya's jawline and neck. Warm, faintly throbbing to life. His hair concealed her fingers, was silkier than she remembered. Though there was a sudden stiffening through his sleepy limbs, he stared at her without any suggestion of objection and sighed as she traced her thumbs along the flesh of his cheeks. Amongst the darkness. Alone. Separated for sacred seconds from the unspoken rules of dissociation and decency, Kiyuku kissed him. Straining her neck downwards, clutching Byakuya's face between shaking fingers, she pressed her lips firmly against his in eager imploration.

Months had passed – and like a woman sucking on bones, she'd spent the last number of nights with eyes guiltily shut. Working her hand against her skin in a frail attempt at mimicry. Stifling moans, pretending Byakuya would wake up and walk in and continue on her behalf. He never did. There'd been no pleasure in it; only miserable pining. And the pressure had built up throughout her body, a dead and hungry and demanding weight that spread down and out in red aching. Insidious. Decidedly invisible until just then.

People kissed each other all the time without it meaning anything.

People did _lots _of things without it meaning anything.

They could pretend that that was the case now.

Just two friends doing what friends did.

Kiyuku slithered her legs onto either side of Byakuya's hips, fed herself into him with greater impatience. Sliding her palm along his jaw, wrapping her fingers around his chin, she pulled his mouth more firmly against hers and pushed her tongue against his lips – to which Byakuya obliged slowly, hesitantly, setting his tongue alongside hers in a firm contact of alive and slippery muscle. Whether to stop or stay or force the boundaries further, Kiyuku couldn't decide. Byakuya's own hands were balanced in an uncertain hold upon her back; they kissed with a gross and unnoticed mingling of spit and breath. It was a sense without sense, so completely right and familiar yet almost the same as kissing a stranger. New. Daring.

Settling into Byakuya's groin, Kiyuku felt with an unfamiliar sense of shock and delight the hardening swell she'd only ever heard about. There was something ludicrous about it, this slide of silk on silk over such a delicate mound and the pleasant shiver it evoked. Kiyuku rocked her hips forwards and felt a rasping in her throat. Byakuya groaned quietly into her lips, a sound that was full-bodied and greedy – he wrapped one hand high around the back of her thigh, grasped her nape with the other.

While she released his chin, dropping her touch to his bicep, his fingers tangled themselves in her hair and gently tugged her head backwards. Breath hot and irregular, Byakuya's tongue travelled from the balcony of her collar bone up along the curve of her neck. Moist flesh on flesh. Steady against her tendons until he stopped to kiss her ear, sucking softly with what was easy to mistake for tender fondness.

Kiyuku's own tongue felt burdened without the weight of his. She ran it along her lips once more, the taste of hot chocolate faraway and that of Byakuya sharply foregrounded. All the while, he continued to push and pull her in a swaying motion against him, kissing and licking her neck with hushed moans that reverberated through her veins. Helplessly, Kiyuku's own body pierced itself over with marvelous pangs – like overflowing, boiling water. It seemed she'd been aching for years against it. For Byakuya's hands and lips and the entirety of his body and soul.

She'd missed him so much it was painful.

She wanted him – adored him – loved him.

_I don't love you, Kiyuku. _

Oh.

That's right.

He didn't love her.

Kiyuku whimpered.

Disconcerting heat rose to her cheeks as she slid out from Byakuya's lap – a feeling she'd grown accustomed to; one which hadn't quite left her yet. In her ears, there was a sickening heartbeat that seemed not to throb forth from her chest but from everywhere. She looked down at her hands, painfully aware of the way Byakuya stared at her as she sat silently next to him. He didn't move, as though waiting for her to catch her breath and then resume.

"I – I'm so sorry," she murmured, suddenly no longer within herself but somewhere far gone. "I don't know what came over me."

A shuffling. A sharp breath. "No, it's – fine. It's okay."

"It isn't." Kiyuku got up from the couch, overcome by giddy shivers. She tip-toed back to the bedroom, self-conscious and feeling inexplicably dirty. Coated in a layer of moss and sweat and thwarted desire. Stupid. Reckless. Hopelessly so. From the doorway, she glanced over her shoulder back at Byakuya – he wasn't looking at her, eyes downturned and body halfway slumped. There was in his hands the previously abandoned cup of hot chocolate, and with a look of surprising unsteadiness, he lifted it to his lips and drank.

...

**A/N: Dun, dun, _duuun_! Hope you all enjoyed this chapter - leave a review and let me know what you think. :D**


	72. An Understanding

Chapter 72  
An Understanding

The thing was, Kiyuku had been able to ignore it because she'd kept herself busy. Paperwork, training, missions – she'd maintained a thin façade of preoccupation and had mostly managed to not think about him at all. Of course, there'd been nights where she'd been too tired to fall asleep and would lie awake for hours, gaze boring into the ceiling while Byakuya came to her in sweet, intrusive thoughts. A series riddled with what-ifs and possibilities, though they were always gone by morning.

However, enclosed constantly within the same four walls, it was a different story. He was impossible to avoid and it was impossible not to want him, the bottled-up feelings of the last few months breaking through and flowing over with devastating potency. Being so close to him. Being so far away from the blinding influence of her work. That was what had happened that morning: without distraction or defense, Kiyuku had remembered just how much she needed him – and it broke her to the point that she'd betrayed her own heartache.

Still with the prickle of the kiss on her lips, she sighed.

Rain was sprinkling down. Kiyuku watched the drops, almost more mist than water, from the sheltered entranceway of Karakura High School. Having arrived an hour earlier than she'd originally intended, there was almost no one else around – some staff, who glanced at her curiously or merely grumbled as they passed by; a measly handful of early students; otherwise, just her and the rain.

A hollow feeling deepened in Kiyuku's chest, both dizzying and sharp. The same sort that washed itself over the senses after a bout of hysterics, offering new and hideous clarity.

Indeed, if nothing else, Kiyuku at least wasn't confused about what had happened. Embarrassed, absolutely. Sad and perturbed, yes. But not confused. On the contrary, the kiss that morning had made the ridiculousness of friendship plain. Kyoraku-taichou had been right. Simply being Byakuya's 'friend' was a cause as hopeless as it was stupid. _Of course_ there would never be any satisfaction in it. _Of course_ Kiyuku would be left chasing rainbows: wanting more, pressing for it one way or another. It was in her nature, only the attempts would be fruitless and ever more foolish.

Being so caught up in these thoughts, Kiyuku almost didn't notice the pink umbrella that rushed through the schoolyard towards her – nor the way in which the person beneath it waved. It was only at the last moment, when said person sprang up the front steps with a delightful bop, that Kiyuku realised Inoue Orihime was beaming at her through the rain. "Good morning, Aramiya-chan!"

"Inoue-san! You're very early."

"Mmm – I like eating my breakfast at school," Orihime explained, holding out a carefully wrapped package as she came to stand with Kiyuku. "It's always so peaceful in the morning, especially when it's raining like this."

Kiyuku gave her best attempt at a smile. She usually liked the rain too. "I see."

"Do you want to join me? I made enough to share!"

"That's sweet of you, but no," Kiyuku objected. "I'm just waiting for somebody, then I'll be on my way."

Orihime tilted her head with questioning sweetness, umbrella still balanced against her shoulder though they were under cover. "_Oh _~ who are you waiting for? Does it have to do with the zanpakuto that escaped?"

"Not exactly," Kiyuku said. "It's Kurosaki Ichigo. He wanted to give me a message for Rukia."

There was a peculiar drop in Orihime's features. Perhaps a trick of the light, or a hint of discomfort in Kiyuku's tone that did not bode well with the girl's raw sense of loveliness. Certainly, Kiyuku did not have any real strength for company or conversation – perhaps by some powerful sense of womanly intuition, Orihime knew this and felt put-out. She pursed her lips in a strange smile. Blinked once, then twice again. "Oh. I see." A tentative pause, in which her smile began to look ever more false. "Did Kuchiki-san give Kurosaki-kun a message too?"

"She did."

"That's – that's nice," Orihime mumbled. "Kurosaki-kun must be very happy."

At this, Kiyuku raised an eyebrow. Nothing about Orihime's dullness suggested that she thought the situation was 'nice'. The girl sank into herself, glanced down towards her feet in an abashed look of brooding. "Is something wrong, Inoue-san?" Kiyuku questioned.

To which Orihime cried, "No, no! Not at all. I just–" she bit her lip, seeming to consider her words. "I didn't know Kurosaki-kun and Kuchiki-san were still – umm – talking."

"Does that bother you?"

"What? Oh. No, it's not that. I think it's so nice…"

Kiyuku realised it then. With shattering familiarity, Kiyuku realised what she'd just rubbed in Orihime's sweet and unsuspecting face like dung. She stepped forward, considered the girl's expression with all the sobriety she reserved for her seated officers. "Inoue-san," Kiyuku said softly. "Do you have feelings for him? For Kurosaki Ichigo?"

Orihime only stared at her, redness befalling her features as she stuttered against words that wouldn't come, "Kurosaki – n-no – umm – it's just –"

And in her stupefaction, in the way she grappled for explanations that wouldn't be true and denials that would be frail at best, it was abundantly clear that Kiyuku was right. Orihime wasbothered by the exchange of messages – she didhave feelings for Kurosaki Ichigo and perhaps felt threatened. Or robbed. Robbed by another woman of the man she loved – another woman who she would possibly spend the rest of her life comparing herself to. Rukia.

_Hisana_. Having not thought of Byakuya, Kiyuku hadn't thought of _her_ either. Now however, with an iron-sharpened sense of defeat, Kiyuku saw Hisana's face as though it were an image seared upon the heart. Hisana: honey-sweet, blossom-lovely. Frail and cold and very dead. No wrong could be done by the grave. No bad word was to be uttered upon a corpse. And Kiyuku didn't feel she had any bad words to give – she'd stopped hating Hisana long ago; had resigned herself to the fact that Hisana was the best thing to have ever happened to Byakuya. He'd learned what it was to love because of her, and had been happy. How could Kiyuku hate her for that? For having made the man she loved so very, very happy.

Even if it meant Kiyuku would spend the rest of her life wanting to curl up and die in a hole.

More so now that she had possibly played a semblance of a role in inflicting the same kind of pain upon someone else – Orihime, as she continued to struggle for words and explanations. Kiyuku considered leaving right then. Considered ignoring Ichigo's pleas and leaving Rukia empty-handed and perhaps giving Orihime some sort of chance with the boy she liked. The man she loved. Not that that would have been fair on anyone – frankly, it would only have made her so much crueler than she already felt.

"You don't have to answer me, Inoue," Kiyuku said. "It's not really any of my business."

Falling silent, blush receding from her cheeks, Orihime gawked with wide and sparkling eyes.

"If it's any consolation, though…" Kiyuku continued, feeling her own face imitate the pink-hued flush. She smiled at Orihime, sad and hoping it wasn't obvious. "I understand. Although I think you deserve better."

A quiet gasp ghosted from Orihime's throat. "Better?"

"Yes. Better."

"Aramiya-chan," Orihime murmured. At last, she closed the umbrella, glancing between it and Kiyuku with thoughtful confidence. "I appreciate it, but sometimes I think there isn't better than Kurosaki-kun."

_Well_. Actually. Byakuya was better than everyone ever. Though now was not the time to say so.

Out from the dreary drizzle, there came a third and familiar voice, calling out and quickly approaching. Both Kiyuku and Orihime exchanged one last look – smiles vaguely soaked in empathy; the closest Kiyuku had and would hopefully ever feel to a human – before squinting into the haze at Kurosaki Ichigo. Orihime called out to him in return, rising onto her toes as she waved, and sounded more thrilled than a church bell in the morning.

Somehow, she seemed to be managing just fine as Ichigo's friend. Maybe, in some ways, she was a stronger woman than Kiyuku was. Through an odd combination of awe and shame, Kiyuku considered this and berated herself for having failed so tremendously. And then she simply sighed for the umpteenth time that day.

"You keeping Kiyuku-san company, Inoue?" Ichigo grinned, arriving at the entranceway.

No point in correcting him anymore.

Pleasantly, Orihime nodded. "I was just about to go in for breakfast though." She turned once more to Kiyuku and tilted her head knowingly. "I hope you catch the zanpakuto soon!"

"Thank you, Inoue-san."

With that, as though upon an impenetrable cloud of gentle goodness, Orihime vanished through the doors of the school. Off to some distant corner, where she would eat her breakfast and quite possibly forget about what had just transpired. Kiyuku, on the other hand, was caught up in the feeling of betrayal as she took Ichigo's letter. She may have been nursing two hearts by playing messenger pigeon, but she was also breaking one – one like hers. One that perhaps hadn't wanted to get caught up in such a wastage of feelings in the first place.

Or maybe it wasn't so bad as all that. Maybe Orihime really was as kind as she seemed and only cared that Ichigo was happy, content to continue on as a friend rather than lover, soul mate or wife. It was an admirable thing, really. One Kiyuku didn't feel ready for. Hypocritical as it was – being an oh-so-mighty captain and all – she wasn't ready to be admirable. Byakuya still held too much of a chunk of her heart and soul. Kiyuku wasn't brave enough to let him go yet.


	73. Champagne

Chapter 73  
Champagne

"_The situation has resolved itself. Return to Soul Society at earliest convenience._"

Byakuya stared hard at the message, as though to discover some hidden code. Waiting for more details, because surely that couldn't be it: for the last three days to have been an utter waste of time. Indeed, it seemed absurd that two captains should have been expected to wait around for _something _to happen – which, in the first place, was already a lieutenant or seated officer's job – only for the situation to 'resolve itself'. Just like that. Absolutely absurd.

And Kiyuku had been so anxious about the whole thing. Enough so that she'd lost sleep.

Enough so that she'd done something so deliciously reckless in what must have been a moment of hyper-stressed impulsivity. Kissing Byakuya like that. Climbing into his lap and setting every inch of him on fire. Only for him to be left stewing and pining afterwards to the point of irritability – not that he blamed her for it; frankly, he should even have been grateful for the way in which things had halted so abruptly. Had it gone on any longer, had she moaned even once more or touched him anywhere else, Byakuya would probably have spilled his guts and sung a ballad of love.

The words had been right there on his tongue. Immense and particular. He had wanted to tell her then; he still wanted to tell her now. Somehow there wasn't a doubt about it.

The girl he loved – and the girl who was now avoiding him. _Again_.

Rounding the corner to the hotel – Byakuya had just spent the entire day scouring the streets for foreign reiatsu, long enough for the hours to have passed and for the day to have gone dark, all for nothing – he wondered how far Kiyuku's peculiar ability for side-stepping really went. Most people would probably have denied outright that anything had happened. Others would blame or argue. Not Kiyuku. When it came to the unpleasantries of the heart, when her neat world of perfectionism was threatened, she'd stick her head in the ground and simply avoid it all.

Byakuya shook his head at everything and nothing. Maybe it was for the best that she'd spent almost every hour of the last day out and away from him. Otherwise there was no telling what could have happened. With the heat of their kiss still seeming to linger in the hotel room, with Byakuya's insides still doing a nauseating tumble about themselves, it seemed likely that much worse than a kiss – granted, a kiss that still left him hot and uncomfortably full in Kiyuku's presence – could have happened.

_Ting_.

At this point, being Kiyuku's friend was too much of a risk.

_Ting._

Perhaps things would have to come to another end.

_Ting_.

But he wasn't ready to let her go.

_**Ting**_.

Fifteenth floor. The elevator doors slid open with a metallic hiss.

Would Kiyuku have been back in the hotel room already? The walk down the corridor felt long and tremendously slow, the door to their suite seeming to extend ever away.

By the mission's sudden termination, Kiyuku would likely be annoyed – as Byakuya himself was. By the lack of opportunity to avoid him any longer, she would probably have been perturbed – he wasn't. Without work, they would be faced with the inevitable collapse of what had been a farcical friendship from the start; there could be no going on like this. Him, sick to the core with complicated longing. She, whatever it was she was feeling that drove her to elude matters completely.

Reaching the door, hand upon the handle, Byakuya steeled himself against the unavoidable. _We can't go on like this, Kiyuku. I'm sorry. Again._

Heavy with the hopeless knowledge of what he had to do, he entered the suite. Called Kiyuku's name – and was surprised by the response.

"BYAKOOOYA~!"

No. Not surprised. Surprised was an understatement.

Bursting forth with explosive vibrancy, as though having been blown in upon a gust of wind, Kiyuku appeared before him. Eyes wider than he had ever seen, cheeks blotched pink and white like a pond of waterlilies, she threw herself against him in a passionate hug.

Grinning, she cooed, "I've been _waiting_ for _yoou_~"

Byakuya could only stare, hands dangling above Kiyuku's shoulders in an uncertain hover. This was not the greeting he had expected.

Kiyuku wore one of the hotel's bathrobes, fluffed and white, and had her hair clipped at the back of her head. There was the smell of creams and bubble bath, and – Byakuya realised as Kiyuku's breath brushed his cheek like a phantom – champagne. Subtle, aromatic and fruity. Byakuya lifted his eyes and noticed on the coffee table a popped bottle: the hotel's complimentary one.

"Have you been… drinking?"

A devilish sweetness curled itself into Kiyuku's features. She giggled, "Yes. But only a _teeny _bit." Jumping backwards, strands of hair floating against her face, she explained with hyperactive delight, "I got this message this afternoon, right? Some nonsense about the rogue zanpakuto having sorted itself out – oh, yes! By the way, the situation has been '_resolved_', so we can go back to Soul Society – but you probably also got a message, right? _Aaanyway_ ~ I was so irritated, because, well, we just wasted a whole three days on nothing. And I was going to go crazy, because I've been _so stressed out _about it. But then I remembered the hotel has a spa service, so I thought I'd get a massage or something, but then I didn't want to get naked because apparently that's what you do when you get a massage. Weird, right? So I got a manicure instead. _Look_~!"

Gleefully, Kiyuku held out and twiddled her fingers, nails glistening with blossomy pink.

Byakuya raised his eyebrows. "I see."

"Aren't they nice!?"

"Yes," he droned, still reeling. "Very nice."

Another giggle. "So _aaanyway_, while the lady was doing my nails – she was _so_ nice! – I remembered that we had that champagne, and I thought, you know, _one glass _won't hurt. But it was _sooo yummy _and _bubbly_, I had to have another glass. Then I had another when the lady was done with my manicure, but I finished that one too quickly. I'm busy with another one now–" Throwing her hands to her cheeks, gasping exaggeratedly as though having come to a most serious realisation, Kiyuku leaned towards Byakuya. "You should _join me_~!"

Four glasses of champagne. That was at least three and a half glasses too many, Byakuya was sure. He sighed, shaking his head at Kiyuku – had it been anyone else, he would have scolded them; would likely have left them to sober up in the hallway. But Kiyuku was much too lovely, flushed and excitable like a small bird at sunrise.

With incredible speed, she grabbed his hands and pulled him towards the living area.

"By the way," she said, beaming back at him. "You look _so nice _in these suits! Super sharp. Like a hedgehog – only a lot more handsome. You should wear suits _all_ _the_ _time_."

Byakuya wasn't sure what to say to such a strange compliment. So he said nothing. However, he felt the twinge of a smile against his lips.

"Now. You sit right _here_~" Kiyuku said, thrusting him against one of the couches before spinning away upon her toes. "And I'll pour you some champa– _oh no_!"

"What's wrong?"

She looked back at him, dewy features having dropped with shocking swiftness. "There's no champagne left~"

"That's alright," Byakuya tried to reassure her, silently aghast by the fact that she'd finished an entire bottle of champagne completely on her own. "I didn't want anyway."

However, to his horror, Kiyuku sniffled. "But… _But_… I was so excited…" And then, shoulders quivering, features crinkling into the sullen expression of a child, she stared at Byakuya and began to cry. "I was so excited to drink with you!"

It seemed incredible that such a tiny body could possess such massive tears, and that those tears could be summoned forth in the blink of an eye. They streamed down Kiyuku's cheeks, silvery ribbons, and Byakuya rose with panicked speed from the couch. Unsure of himself, taken aback – women's tears were not his forte. His fingers prickled with the urge to touch her, though somehow he felt that that would make the situation worse, like provoking a baby.

"There's… there's no need to cry," Byakuya said hesitantly.

"_Of course there is_!" Kiyuku wailed in turn, bringing her hand to her forehead with all the dramatics of tragedy. "I'm the absolute worst! I drank _all _the champagne when you so clearly wanted some–"

"I really didn't want champagne."

"–and now we can't possibly enjoy our evening. I should throw myself out the window right this _instant_!"

Hands shooting out in a defensive stance, ready to grab Kiyuku in case some drunken inspiration actually sent her in a suicidal dash for the window, Byakuya could not deny that he was confused. He stared at her, brow furrowing. "We can just order more champagne," he said in hopes of returning her to the initial state of bubbliness – the next bottle of champagne would have to be non-alcoholic though.

Kiyuku's tears gave way to wide-eyed astonishment. "We-we can do that?"

"If that's what would make you happy."

A pause. Kiyuku tilted her head in an endearing look of questioning. "Happy?" she murmured thoughtfully. Then, in such a way that Byakuya felt certain he'd seen the face of an angel, she smiled with all the shimmer of stars reflected in water. A drunken swirl of cursive upon her lips. A musical softness in her eyes' blues. She stepped towards him, closing the space and looking up at Byakuya with a glossily deepening flush, and whispered, "_You_ make me happy~"

How excruciating – though Byakuya could not help but feel that he had walked himself into it. There were no cruel gods at play. No sense of cold fate or destiny. Just him and a prideless lack of control. He sighed, "Don't say that."

"_Why_~?"

"You deserve much better than me."

"Oh, no." Rising onto her toes, still not tall enough for her head to pass his shoulders, Kiyuku's arms wrapped themselves around Byakuya's neck. She gazed at him with the intensity of unrelenting blooms, apparently having forgotten all about the champagne, and shook her head. "You see, _Byakooya_, I don't think there _is_ anyone better than you."

"That's not–"

He couldn't finish.

Kiyuku kissed him again, the lonely and lovely aftertaste of champagne upon her mouth. Unlike the previous day's kiss though – which had been weighty and full of frustration – this one was slow and light, a mere graze of the lips. Like kissing air. Or bubbles. And Byakuya, in all his helplessness against her, wanted so badly to sink in and stay like that forever. To be with her forever – to be hers utterly and completely.

When she broke away from his lips, continuing to hold his neck between her arms in a vice-grip, she nuzzled his throat and sighed, a rising sing-song. "You always smell _so nice_~" she cooed. "It's one of my favourite smells in the whole world."

"Kiyuku."

"Mmm?"

"You need to let go of me."

Pulling back to pout at him, lips kissable and full, she shook her head once again. "I don't want to."

"That doesn't matter." Byakuya placed his hands on her hips, gently tried to push her away.

"_But_…"

"Please, Kiyuku."

Though her arms did not fall away from his neck, they did slacken dully. She looked up at him as a child would look at a disappointing gift – and Byakuya felt terrible for it, as though he had scolded a dog for chasing its tail. Her eyes dimmed, one from blue to grey and the other from grey to greyer, and with the same foreboding drop in her features as before, she sniffled.

"No. Stop," Byakuya demanded, enveloping her cheeks in his hands and gazing hard into her eyes. "Stop this."

"_Sorry_." A tear slivered down onto his thumb. "It's just… I haven't~" A hiccup bounced out from her chest. "I miss you all the time. _So much_."

The last three days had been a waste. So too had the last three months, it seemed. She was supposed to have moved on – whether with the lieutenant from the third squad, with another man, or with no man at all, she was supposed to have moved on and realised that she deserved so much more than Byakuya could give her. It may have been too late for him, too far gone, but surely not for Kiyuku: she was still so young and so beautiful, had the whole world like clay in her hands. So why did she have to make things so difficult?

Byakuya sighed.

Kiyuku whimpered, touched the tips of her fingers to the back of his hand. "Why don't you love me?"

"Don't ask me that." Byakuya wiped the new tears from her face, but still more came.

"I know it's because of Hi-Hisana. You'll never stop loving her and that's – that's okay with me." Flattening both her hands on top of his, Kiyuku looked to be holding her own cheeks. She shut her eyes against the water that wouldn't stop flowing. "But _I _love _you_. I love you and I want you to love me too. Even if you only love me a tiny bit. Even if you only pretend to."

She slurred her words in places and, at times, spoke with a subtle lisp. Far from elegant. Overdramatic. Byakuya's chest tore open and he felt his heart fall out before him.

He grasped Kiyuku's cheeks more firmly, pulled her face towards his so that he could whisper, "_I do love you_."

She sniffed again, blinked back more tears. "W-what?"

"I do love you, Kiyuku. I always have."

A dazed and teary stare. With the edge of her sleeve, she wiped her nose. "But – no. I don't mean as just a friend," she murmured, dropping her eyes in something like resignation.

"Neither do I." Byakuya let go of Kiyuku's cheeks and cocooned her hands in his. He lifted her fingers – slender and slightly trembling – to his lips and kissed them one by one, each time a silent declaration. _I love you. I love you. IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou_. He shouldn't have done it, but he did and felt his ribcage open up as though flowers were blooming within it. All the while, Kiyuku stared, dumbfounded and perhaps considering the possibility that none of this was real. Indeed, it didn't feel very real. It felt marvelously like a dream.

"I – I don't understand," Kiyuku muttered. "You love me?"

"Yes."

"You said you didn't."

"I lied."

She considered this, frowning seriously. "So all this time…"

"Yes."

Finally, it seemed to dawn on her. Her eyes widened once again, reignited by an excitable spark, and her teeny frame shook. Tears remained in her eyes, though they gradually began to cease. "You _love _me! I'm loved!" Then she slipped her hands out from Byakuya's and held her cheeks in delight. "You must tell me again tomorrow~!"

To which Byakuya raised his eyebrows. "Why tomorrow?"

"Because I'm drunk right now and might not remember this," Kiyuku squealed. "Well, I mean, not _that _drunk – I _only _had four glasses…"

Even after having had 'only' four glasses, it seemed unlikely that she wouldn't remember. Nonetheless, Byakuya agreed. He may not have had any real intention of telling her again – if she didn't remember, she wouldn't remember his promise to do so, and if she did remember, there would be no need for him to repeat it – but for the sake of maintaining a lighthearted intoxication, he agreed to her requests with something of a smile.

Thrilled and satisfied, Kiyuku returned to the topic of the champagne. Byakuya order her another (non-alcoholic) bottle, but not without watching her down three glasses of water first.

She fell asleep on the couch long before the porters arrived.

Curled up, legs brought to her chest, her lips twitched spasmodically into endearing little smiles. At some point, the clip had come out from her hair, amber wisps now falling in all directions across the pillows and her face. Byakuya watched her for a long while, listening to her breathe as well as to the heavy thudding of his heart. So vulnerable. So beautiful. And for a moment, she'd been his.

Lifting Kiyuku from the couch and holding her against his chest, where she wrapped her arms around his neck with sleepy slowness and balanced her cheek against his shoulder – he had never picked her up like this before; she was even lighter than he'd thought she'd be – Byakuya carried her through the hotel room and to the bed. Cool, white sheets. White gown. Pale skin. Red hair. She slid under the covers without so much as opening her eyes.

Tenderly, Byakuya ran his fingers down the curve of her face. From the delicate undulation of her temple, round the soft cheek, along her jaw. _IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou_. Then he turned to leave.

Only, a gentle hand gripped his wrist – and from the bed: a sweet, quiet voice. "Stay."

"I shouldn't," Byakuya whispered. Turning to look again at Kiyuku, he found her gazing up at him from the pillow.

"The bed's so big… I won't be able to sleep if you don't cuddle me." Kiyuku tugged his arm carefully. "_Please_~ Just for a little while."

He'd already done a multitude of things he shouldn't have. Little more harm could come from this. Seeming to sense the accession in his hesitation, Kiyuku shuffled backwards across the bed and grinned sleepily. She tapped the empty space of the mattress, beckoned to Byakuya without saying a word. He shook his head at her – manipulative little brat – and relented.

"But only for a little while," he repeated.

"_Wonderful_."

She draped her legs between his, nestled herself along the frame of his body with shameless closeness – such stunning warmth, this near flesh-on-flesh touch. One arm draped around his torso, the other squeezed comfortably between her chest and his, they lay face-to-face. Byakuya could still smell champagne on her breath; could see the drunken bubbles that floated behind her eyes. Kiyuku continued to smile and Byakuya, spinning at the feel of her against him, almost smiled back.

"One more thing..." she whispered, conspiratorial under the comfortable cover of darkness.

"What now?"

"Can you kiss me goodnight?"

Without hesitation, without any sense of uncertainty or guilt, Byakuya moved his head across the pillow and pressed his lips to hers. For once not a goodbye – as Byakuya's tongue had been so riddled with the last few months – but goodnight. _Good night Kiyuku. Good night my love. _

It was not only for a little while that they stayed like this, Her in his arms, a calming synchronization growing between their heart beats, Byakuya held her all through until the morning.

...

**A/N: Yay! A resolution at last! So enjoyed writing this chapter - and I've enjoyed reading all your reviews even more! Please do continue to let me know what you think. :) :)**


	74. Yamajii

Chapter 74  
Yamajii

Certainly, Shunsui had been surprised by Yamajii's decision – not only to send two captains to handle the problem in the Human World, but also to send Byakuya and Kiyuku-chan specifically. In the first place, neither of their squads were responsible for the areas around Tokyo, nor did the fifth and sixth squads have much to do with each other otherwise.

Strange, indeed.

Even more so was the fact that apparently nothing had happened. According to Kiyuku-chan, the situation had magically 'resolved itself'. Of course, she hadn't been particularly forthcoming with information. On the contrary, when Shunsui had gone with Ukitake to the Senkaimon that day, they'd been met with an awkward jitteriness. Kiyuku-chan had been blunt, looking perturbed and irritated – with dark circles beneath her eyes, a red glow across her cheeks like a sunburn, Shunsui had recognised the tell-tale signs of a hangover. Byakuya, on the other hand, had left the scene after nothing but a curt and quiet greeting.

"What do you think that was all about?" Ukitake asked.

Shunsui had no idea, though he suspected something more than nothing had happened in the Human World. It was in the way Kiyuku-chan and Byakuya kept themselves as far away from each other as possible – a pair of magnets, pushing and pulling against each other, attracting and repelling. Doing so with enough force that it was impossible not to notice. Ukitake also suggested something of the sort, a kind of repeat of what had happened that day at the beach – that day when Kiyuku-chan and Byakuya had disappeared for hours into the distance, only to return in self-conscious separation.

Very strange, indeed.

Curiosity getting the better of him, Shunsui went to see Yamajii.

The old man was busy at his desk, unflinching as Shunsui wandered through the door. A view such as the one to be had from this office was one Shunsui would never get used to – the sweeping landscape of Seireitei, all whites and golds beneath the sunlight. Were it his office, Shunsui would spend every day out on the balcony.

"Yamajii!" he greeted, touching the tip of his hat in friendliness. "You're looking well."

Without glancing up from his writing brush, Yamajii replied brusquely, "What is it, Shunsui?"

"My, my, right to the point, eh? Very well…" Shunsui chuckled and came up close to the desk. "I'm wondering something."

"Mmm?"

"The rogue zanpakuto that supposedly escaped to the real world. Kiyuku-chan tells me it ended up being nothing at all."

"Well, if that's what Aramiya-taichou had to report, then I have nothing to add."

So serious and reserved, voice like the crunching of autumn leaves. Tilting his head, Shunsui considered such deadpan indifference – how very unlike his old master to be so unfazed. As though he'd known all along that this news would reach him. "There was no zanpakuto, was there?"

At last, Yamajii lowered his brush and looked up. Through the scrunched wrinkles of his eyes, beneath the silvery beard, there was a wavering look. Not particularly concerning. Frankly, not very serious at all. Shunsui grinned.

"Come on, Yamajii. Spill the beans."

"No. There was no zanpakuto," the old man admitted, tone strong and steadfast. "However, I would strongly urge you to keep it to yourself."

"No problem there," Shunsui shrugged. "Although I can't help but wonder what made you send away Kiyuku-chan and Kuchiki-taichou."

With the slow creak of wood on wood, Yamajii stood and made for the balcony, seeming to have forgotten that Shunsui was there. He walked with the slightest sway of age, heavy upon his cane and breathing leisurely. Lost in thought. Ever more interested, rather excited by the new air of secrecy about the usually-so-stoic Captain-Commander, Shunsui followed behind until he came to be standing in the open sunlight. A magnificent view indeed – what did Yamajii think when he looked down upon it all? That those below were as meagre as dolls? Insignificant as ants? It was easy to believe so from such marvelous heights.

Lowly humming, Yamajii unveiled the mystery. "I received a rather heartfelt petition."

Shunsui, raising his eyebrows, stared at the Captain-Commander. "That so? From whom?"

"From a trio of very concerned zanpakuto."

An image of Kiyuku-chan's pair dashed through Shunsui's mind – Yorokobi, sarcastic and fun; Mubōna, a pretty little lady. Both of them clad in flowered silks and made up of lovely things. That they should have gone so far as to address the Captain-Commander regarding matters of the heart should not have been surprising. Kiyuku-chan herself had always been bold. The third figure in this story remained a mystery – had it been Senbonzakura? That seemed less likely.

"Your Katen came to me with Aramiya-taichou's zanpakuto," Yamajii declared. "Together they made a very convincing argument."

_Ah_. So it had been Katen. Of course. She'd appeared rather passionate about the love affair between Kiyuku-chan and Byakuya from the start – perhaps because all the dramatics had upset her darling playmates so; perhaps because she was a romantic at heart, despite all her callousness. Once again, Shunsui chuckled.

"So what were you hoping to achieve by sending them to the Human World?" he questioned.

"Don't think I haven't noticed. The pair of them are always looking at each other with hearts full of regret. Utter nonsense. I won't have my captains behaving like a bunch of lovestruck teenagers." Yamajii shook his head in dismay. "I sent them to the Human World because Katen and Mubōna Yorokobi suggested time alone would allow the issue to resolve itself."

"Ah! Yamajii! I think you're just a romantic old man," Shunsui guffawed. "You want to see Kuchiki-taichou and Kiyuku-chan get together just as much as the rest of us do."

"You're pushing it, Shunsui. Watch yourself."

"Sorry, sorry. Couldn't help myself." With a blissful sigh, basking in the glorious warmth of the afternoon's light, Shunsui leaned against the balcony wall and gazed out upon the Seireitei. He could spot some of the barracks. Certain noble manors. Somewhere amongst it all, Kiyuku-chan was going about her business looking uncharacteristically hassled. Byakuya – well, who knew what he would be doing. "You know, Yamajii. I think you made the right call. I've got a good feeling."

Sternly, the old man grunted.


	75. Family Matters (I)

Chapter 75  
Family Matters (I)

Out on the portico, still in his yukata, Byakuya was surprised by the announcement of a visitor. It was his day off – there was no official business to be attending to, and there was no one he'd been expecting. It was not common to come across someone so bold as to so spontaneously demand his presence; not even the family elders tried their luck so freely. As Byakuya followed the servant through the manor, both curious and irked, a certain part of him expected it to be Kiyuku. Flouncing in as she'd done multiple times before. Claiming his attention as her own.

Alas, it was not her.

(After having woken up next to Byakuya in the Human World, she'd bolted from the bed and stewed over the hotel's buffet breakfast until it had been time to leave. They'd spoken a few times since then, but the conversation was always strained and inconsequential – and though it was clear she was constantly thinking in a mad dash, the topic that was obviously on both of their minds never came up.)

In the art gallery, eying out the recently rehung works of calligraphy, was another figure entirely. Tall and foreboding, noticeably slowed by the hands of frailty yet still refusing to yield, the unexpected guest did not turn to face Byakuya. Instead, he continued to consider the artworks intently, hands held behind his back in an age-old posture of comfortable dominance.

Byakuya dismissed the servant with a request for tea, stepped into the gallery. What had inspired this visit, what sort of philosophical drawl he was due to receive, Byakuya couldn't quite figure – however, he did not wait in silence to find out, greeting the guest with purposeful calm.

"Hello, Grandfather."

"Byakuya." Voice an ambiguous rasp, Kuchiki Ginrei turned to gaze at his grandson. "It's been rather a while."

In his old age, Ginrei had become sickly – hacking frequently, often times confined to his bed – and so Kuchiki Manor did not receive visits from its previous master so often anymore. Byakuya, on the other hand, had been much too busy over the last couple of months to see his Grandfather. He'd written, of course, had sent small gifts, but this was the first in a long while that he'd come face to face with Ginrei, who'd grown thin in the face and ever more somber in the eyes.

They took tea on the veranda. There was no breeze to chill, and Byakuya thought that perhaps his Grandfather could use the hint of sunlight and fresh air – indeed, under a more natural illumination than that in the gallery, Ginrei looked pasty and flat. Sometimes, it was possible to hear him wheeze. He coughed occasionally in amongst small talk. However, through it all, he sat erect and proud as he'd always been, gazing at Byakuya with resolute attention.

"I wanted to commend you on your defeat against Kōga," he said after a brief lull in the conversation. "Some time has passed, I'm aware, but you did a worthy job of protecting the family name."

With everything that had happened during and after the fight against Kōga, Byakuya did not feel particularly worthy. The compliment from his Grandfather was not one to be taken lightly, though, and he accepted it with dignity. "Thank you, Grandfather. The name of the Kuchiki Household will always be my greatest source of pride."

"There is another matter I wish to discuss with you on that front."

Byakuya watched Ginrei, refilling their cups with tea and waiting in uncertain silence.

"An _heir_, Byakuya. The Kuchiki Family needs an heir," his Grandfather continued. "I'm certain it's not necessary for me to remind you that such a responsibility cannot be left to Rukia."

"No. There's no need for that."

"Good," Ginrei nodded. "I believe we have been patient with you, but it's time to start considering the matter more seriously." There was a pause. Ginrei considered his grandson with an impermeable expression. When at last he spoke again, it was with an abstruse undertone, as though Ginrei were hoping Byakuya would read more into the words than simply superficially. "Will you be taking another wife?"

Byakuya only blinked, raising his eyebrows at his Grandfather.

Ginrei hummed. "Allow me to rephrase that more concisely," he murmured, and then more assertively questioned, "When will you ask for Aramiya Kiyuku's hand?"

"This isn't simply about producing an heir, is it Grandfather?"

"That's not all there is to it, no. I've been–" another jagged cough, to which Byakuya cringed. However, Ginrei quickly contained himself, dabbing his mouth before straightening to continue. "I've been very much aware of your _relationship _with Aramiya Kiyuku over the last few months."

Unsurprising. Byakuya hadn't expected it to remain concealed for too long from his Grandfather and the family elders. They'd likely had countless meetings already, any number of hopeful discussions over the possibilities such a marriage presented for the Kuchiki bloodline – and, after the uproar Byakuya's marriage to Hisana had caused, the branch families were probably rejoicing over such a heaven-sent match.

_Hisana_. Byakuya could not pretend he hadn't noticed it – he did not think of her any less, but it was no longer with the same shame as before. Those nights in the Human World, the first when Kiyuku had seared her body against his and the second when he had held her as though they were already lovers, he had not been jolted by painful images of Hisana. There'd only been Kiyuku. A vivid picture of colour and clarity, who kissed him with all the messy passion of youth and who set his soul clashing with calm and excitement.

Byakuya was famed for being capable and cold. Level-headed. Unemotional. And though it was, to a certain extent, true, it had all been different with Hisana – his heart had broken for her multiple times over; he had fought for her against the family elders with all the hot-headed fervor of his youth. He had been afflicted by violent fondness and desire, and had loved Hisana with every ounce of feeling he didn't show to the rest of the world.

So too was it the case with Kiyuku.

And his Grandfather knew it.

"You've been very quiet on the matter," Byakuya said.

"As have you."

"There was nothing for me to say."

"Wasn't there?" Ginrei narrowed his eyes, less hostile than he was thoughtful.

Byakuya sipped his tea.

His Grandfather sighed. "I had hoped that there'd be no need for me to get involved…"

"Then why have you brought it up, Grandfather?"

"Because you're a moron."

_Moron_. While it was not the first time Ginrei had called him this, Byakuya was taken aback by the highly personal tinge to the word. Usually, it was said with detached coldness – and had generally been used in the context of Byakuya's more rowdy adolescence. Now, however, it was as though Ginrei himself had been personally wronged by the lack of a marriage.

In light of his grandson's almost stunned silence, Ginrei continued, "Aramiya Kiyuku is a good match for you – though I'm sure you already know that. I can't see any reason why you would not want to pursue things further."

"It has been for the sake of my pride."

"Nonsense." With shocking speed, Ginrei's hand met Byakuya's temple – _smack_. A decently firm slap of sense.

More surprised than injured, Byakuya raised his fingers to the site of the attack, staring at his Grandfather with what must have looked like irritation but was really incredulity.

"Don't think I'm a fool, you big infant. I practically raised you," Ginrei scowled. "This has nothing to do with your pride. Aramiya Kiyuku was a difficult child and is a difficult woman – a force of nature, really. You're not too proud to love her. That would be ridiculous. You're afraid."

Byakuya considered these words, a string of truths he already knew.

For as long as he could remember, his grandfather had been fond of the Aramiya sisters. Fonder than he was of any of the other noble children – perhaps because the four of them were prettier than dolls; perhaps because they'd all been the perfect image of lovely, little ladies. Mina had been proper and good at everything, though Byakuya knew more than anyone that she was perhaps the biggest menace of them all. The twins were always getting up to feminine exploits, such as training each other in the art of etiquette or arranging flowers from the garden.

But Kiyuku had always been Ginrei's favourite. Possibly – and this was a remote possibility – more so than Byakuya himself.

"You should stop behaving like a clueless little boy," his Grandfather insisted with a huff. "Make the girl your wife already."

"I haven't been so sure."

"Because of Hisana?"

Byakuya, once again, said nothing. There was no malice in the way his Grandfather said Hisana's name – no bitterness or impatience.

After a moment's pause, Ginrei sighed. He lowered his cup into his lap, closed his eyes against Byakuya in quiet thought. "Hisana cared very much for you. That you should be happy – by which I mean, remarry – is what she would have wanted."

"Forgive me, Grandfather," Byakuya droned. "But you don't know that."

"I do, actually. I may have been harsh, but I am not heartless – I visited Hisana often while she was sick."

It shouldn't have come as a surprise. But it did, and Byakuya stared at his Grandfather with a frozen heart.

"She worried about you. About what would happen once she was gone." Ginrei opened his eyes once again, looking to Byakuya with uncharacteristic affection. It was sympathy and it was gentleness, the expression full of earnest care. "Hisana may not have returned the love you had to offer, but she did want the best for you. Which is why she asked me to ensure your happiness –why I'm here to tell you to marry Aramiya Kiyuku."

"Grandfather–"

"No, no. Don't interrupt me. You're unsure whether you can love Kiyuku the way she deserves – but we Kuchiki men do not half-ass things, Byakuya. A blind man could see that you love her. And she loves you. And you two together would produce marvelous children–"

"_Grandfather_."

Ginrei scowled. "For heaven's sake, boy. I told you not to interrupt me."

But Byakuya, corners of his mouth twitching into a small smile, only said in return, "I've already decided."

"Decided what?" Ginrei raised an eyebrow.

The months flashed before Byakuya's eyes in a montage: all those times Kiyuku had wandered the Manor gardens, oblivious to Byakuya as he watched her; the meals they'd shared; the thousands of conversations that had meant a hundred nothings and a million somethings all at once; the kisses and touches; stolen moments. Kiyuku had made a home in the hollows of his heart – had planted blossoms and become the sense in his mess of sensibilities. His body and soul had chosen hers, and there'd be no forgetting that.

"I am going to ask her to marry me."

It was Ginrei's turn to stare, the familiar greys of his eyes suddenly steely and solemn. He seemed unsure, almost disbelieving, as though he had prepared himself for stubborn resistance – perhaps he'd come armed with a heartfelt speech; some sort of gesture to truly the tip the scales in his favour. It wouldn't have been the first time. And apparently it wouldn't be necessary.

When at last he spoke, he did so slowly and with half a sense of relief, "My. That was easier than I thought it'd be." Ginrei buried his hands into the folds of his kimono, rummaging for a short few moments before pulling out and handing a carefully wrapped parcel to Byakuya. "In that case, I'd like you to take this."

A fine, pale box. Within it, delicate crinkles of golden paper. Deftly, Byakuya set aside the lid and opened up the paper concealment – beneath which, placed like a fine treasure in the bed of folds, was an orchid. A glass orchid, frosted as the moth-white moon and bejeweled with diamonds. Smaller blossoms of pearl bloomed around it, all contained within outlines of gold. A hair piece, more magnificent than any in the Kuchiki family's collection.

"This is–" Byakuya began, a low choke.

"Your grandmother's," Ginrei nodded. He gazed at the treasured ornament, looking wistful. "Kiyuku is very much like her. Impetuous and brazen. The biggest pain I ever had to deal with – but…" _But I loved her_. There was no need to say anymore. Seeming almost to shake himself back to life, Ginrei considered Byakuya more seriously. "This was the kanzashi I had made for her when I proposed."

"Now you want me to give it to Kiyuku."

His grandfather nodded. "More than that, I would like you to do so quickly," he said sternly. "Only once I know for sure that you haven't chickened out of marrying the girl will I be able to die in peace."


	76. Family Matters (II)

Chapter 76  
Family Matters (II)

A letter had come some days before. A letter from Kuchiki Byakuya.

Requesting to see Sakudo as soon as possible.

In the drawing room, tea steeped on the table. Three cups. Some finger foods were laid out, and for the first time, Sakudo felt no inclination to dig in. Ever since the letter's arrival, he had fretted and stewed to the point of near-hysterics. It seemed absurd to think that Byakuya should have any business with the Aramiyas. Of course, for the sake of the age-old friendship between their families, Sakudo had not pursued the business of Kiyuku-s broken heart – but he had brooded over it often.

Over the weeks of miserable silence that had weighed upon his youngest. Over her self-imposed busyness and the avoidant behaviour. For an insufferably long time, his baby girl had been tired; barely ever hungry; greyed and bland as a sunbaked plum.

As a result of which, he felt no particular eagerness to sip tea with the man responsible. It was only by Narime's gentle prompting – her insistently magnanimous spirit and, perhaps more so, her vicious sense of curiosity – that Sakudo had agreed and invited Byakuya to the Manor.

He was not at all excited, barely even noticed Narime beside him as she stroked his hand.

"Don't be so nervous, my love."

"I'm not nervous."

"You look like you're about to jump out of your skin."

Indeed, Sakudo couldn't stop himself from fidgeting: bouncing his legs, tapping his fingers against his knees. And when one of the servants announced the arrival of their guest, he felt his hands clench into fists under the table. Not nervous. Not anything quite so strong as that. However, he did feel an impending sense of… _something_. Uncertainty of the unknown. A desire to delay. It was all distressingly familiar, even in the face of such vague communications.

Narime stood, straight-backed and confident before the abyss. Sakudo followed unwillingly.

Like an apparition from the night, Byakuya was led through the open shoji and into the drawing room. There was really no point trying to force a smile, an unsettled bristle shimmering down Sakudo's spine. His face had fallen into a safe symmetry of its own – the slight furrow of a brow, a somber frown. All much more suited to the situation than any sort of friendly openness. Narime, on the other hand – clearly forgetting more easily than Sakudo that Byakuya was the usurper who'd taken their daughter's heart in his teeth and butchered it; clearly pretending that he was still just a little, reckless boy rather than some heinous libertine – extended her arms in greeting.

"Kuchiki-san. So lovely to see you!"

Sakudo could have scoffed. However, instead, he flattened his lips into something that was (hopefully) not a scowl.

Byakuya bowed slightly, greeted each of them in turn. "I must thank you for taking the time to see me, Aramiya-san."

"Not at all," Sakudo said, fully not meaning it. "Come. Let's sit. Shall I pour you some tea?"

In an attempt to quell the foreboding ambiguity, Sakudo kept the silence away with near-nauseating small talk. How was Ginrei? How were things with the sixth squad? Was everything running smoothly after the zanpakuto rebellion? What did Byakuya think of the latest developments in the weather – strange that the flowers were blooming so long this summer, right? _Right_?

Through it all, Byakuya looked increasingly uncomfortable. Which made Sakudo increasingly uncomfortable and ever more talkative. Enough so that, after some time, Narime's nails dug into his thigh with suggestive force beneath the table. He resisted the urge to lurch away, shot a distressed look in her direction – to which Narime only smiled. A picture of perfect serenity, she looked calmly between Sakudo and Byakuya as though she weren't trying to mutilate her husband's leg.

"You know, I think the tea has probably gone cold by now," she said. "I should go prepare some more."

Sakudo felt himself sink further – down and down into a suffocating abyss. "No, no, my love. You sit – I'll go fetch the tea," he said, silently hoping that his wife would hear the desperate plea in his voice. _Don't leave me here, Narime. Don't you dare! _

"Nonsense," she spat in turn, thoroughly sweet but saturated with the venom of threat. It rooted Sakudo to his seat, perhaps made Byakuya himself wince. "You two please continue without me."

And just like that, abandoning Sakudo to struggle and drown beneath the infuriating stare of a lecherous Casanova, Narime was gone from the drawing room in a silky cloud of grace.

In light of his wife's desertion, an unwieldy hush opened itself up between Sakudo and Byakuya. They didn't look at each other: glancing around at the walls of the drawing room, at their hands, at some obscure dust particles as they danced through the air. Playing host, Sakudo felt obligated to say something – anything at all; anything to avoid splitting the veil which separated the small talk from the more serious conversation that obviously loomed.

Byakuya cleared his throat, sending a shock of rage down Sakudo's limbs.

"Forgive me, Aramiya-san, but my wanting to see you wasn't a social call."

"I see," Sakudo droned, pressing against the swell in his throat, realising he wasn't doing a very good job of being friendly. And why should he have? The man before him was a fool. A villain. Something that deserved to be sprayed like an insect. "Well then – what would you like to say?"

A shuffling. A crease of the features. "It's about Kiyuku."

"I see."

"I want to marry her."

Marry. Marry Kiyuku. _Marry Kiyuku_?

Sakudo felt himself gawk, unable to stop the childish widening of his eyes. He couldn't have heard Byakuya right – after everything, this couldn't have been happening. It wasn't possible that Kuchiki Byakuya had just waltzed into his house and said it. Such certainty, as though nothing at all had happened these last few months. Such conviction, as though Kiyuku hadn't had her precious heart bruised. Just like that. He came in here and spouted such ridiculous nonsense.

Absurd. A trick of the mind.

"You want to _marry _my daughter?"

Byakuya seemed to hold his breath. "Yes."

"As in – make her your _wife_?"

"I believe that's what marriage entails."

Real indeed, but no less preposterous. Sakudo narrowed his eyes. "Marriage also entails protecting the heart you've chosen… Protecting and nurturing it as though it were the only thing you could ever hope to own," he said with a frown, continuing with more spite, "You haven't done a very good job of nurturing my daughter's heart."

Seeming for a moment to shrink into himself, Byakuya lowered his head. "I haven't."

"And you're surely aware that my daughter deserves much better than that."

"I'm aware."

"So then what did you hope to achieve by coming here?"

A pair of familiar eyes met Sakudo's – the steely grey of his friend, long gone but ever immortalized in the handsome features of his son – and he felt his heart soften. Had Sōjun been alive, he would have been there with them – nodding, urging Sakudo to say yes. _Kuchiki Kiyuku_. Sōjun would have liked the sound of that, would have been a doting father-in-law. With an inexplicable sense of benevolence in the face of Byakuya's earnest expression, Sakudo sighed.

"Aramiya-san. Believe when I say that I love Kiyuku."

Hearing it said so outright, so without shame or reservation, was jolting. Kiyuku had all the love in the world to give; was deserving of that same love – and in Byakuya's voice, in the words spoken with such sincere tenderness, Sakudo heard disarming truths.

Byakuya did not shy away from looking him in the eye, continuing on with controlled feeling, "I am ashamed of the way I have treated her. More ashamed than I will possibly ever be in my life." His shoulders stiffened visibly. "But I will make it right. I love Kiyuku and I know she loves me in spite of everything. So with your blessing, I would like to ask for her hand."

Sakudo stared, impervious. "My blessing…"

"Your blessing," Byakuya repeated.

A blessing to marry Kiyuku. _Littlest of little girls_. The baby who'd walked earlier than any of her sisters, and the child who'd sprinted through the gardens – arms outstretched, as though she were a butterfly amongst the flowers. Sakudo's chest seemed to fall in upon itself. His girl. His baby girl. Kuku, who'd elatedly rushed home all those years ago to say she'd been recruited by the eighth squad; Kiyuku, who now wore a captain's haori and commanded her own officers. Baby. Girl. Woman. One who'd called him _Dayddee _– the one he'd loved before any other man had even set their sights on her.

The words caught in Sakudo's throat. He realised he was frozen, unable to answer, and was all the while bombarded by trophies of nostalgia: Pudgy hands. The first fine wisp of hair. Bruised knees and crocodile-tears. Bud of the childhood. Blossom of the teenage years, in her ill-fitted Academy uniform and stubborn cheekiness.

And now here was this man wanting to marry her. This man, whose history and present were inexplicably bound up with hers.

This man, whom Kiyuku had loved. This man, having stolen the heart of a little girl who'd sworn herself to singleness like a monk. Byakuya, who'd charmed and deserted and broken such a perfect little creature because of… Because of what? Pride? Foolishness? A dead woman that had never loved him anyway?

"Aramiya-san?"

"I'm sorry. But the answer is no."

It was like the room had been shaken by the electric force of lightning.

Sakudo watched Byakuya's eyes widen, considered the way in which Byakuya's heart seemed to sink into his stomach as he struggled for a response.

"E-Excuse me?"

"You had Kiyuku's heart in your hand. An innocent and lovely heart which, given the opportunity, would likely have bled for you – and you made the decision to break it," Sakudo spoke calmly, deliberately, choosing his words with careful thought. "No, not break it. That would have been much too easy. You picked it apart piece by piece, and scattered the shards across a cold and lonely floor. And _now _you decide to come here with your own heart in hand, asking to _marry _her? Can you not see the obscenity in that?"

Byakuya said nothing in turn, his response but a ghost in his hanging mouth.

"Byakuya. Pretty kimonos and a few dinners do not make you worthy of Kiyuku's heart. I hope you can understand me when I say that I don't see any reason to give you my blessing."

"Aramiya-san, I do understand, but _please_–"

It was hard to listen – to hear Kuchiki Byakuya, a man of dignity and grace, beg. To a certain degree, Sakudo did not doubt that the man loved his daughter. Could believe that he would cherish her as his wife. More than that, if Kiyuku were to find out about this conversation, if she were to ever discover that the man she loved had wanted to marry her and that Sakudo had said no, she would probably die inside all over again. She would never forgive her father and perhaps he wouldn't fully be able to forgive himself.

But in quite the same way, he couldn't bring himself to say yes.

"Daddy!"

"Don't do it!"

The twins?

Both Sakudo and Byakuya bulleted their attention towards the half-closed shoji, jointly wondering whether Chiyo and Aniko's voices had been but anxious figments of their imagination.

Swiftly, the shoji slid open – a harsh scratch of wood and paper, revealing Sakudo's other three daughters. They glared at him, faces brighter than the red mess of all their hair, and were clearly unashamed of their eavesdropping. Mina was the leader of the pack, flanked by Chiyo and Aniko, and the three of them together would have made a formidable group. However, too small to be intimidating and too childlike in their enthusiasm, Sakudo felt about ready to spank each of them for such a brazen interruption.

He was about to yell, about to scold the three of them with uncharacteristic fierceness, but was caught short when Mina turned her scowl to Byakuya.

"Father is right. You _have_ treated Kuku-chan despicably and you _should _be ashamed of yourself," she criticised, so motherly that Narime would have been proud. Then she softened, glancing to Chiyo and Aniko in camaraderie at her sides. "However…" Mina settled her gaze upon Sakudo. "Father, you must let Kuchiki-san ask Kiyuku herself."

At her undermining him, Sakudo should have been angrier. Should really have smacked all three of them through the faces. But Mina, with all the calm reason of the next family head, was a convincing figure even without having said much. Chiyo and Aniko, features held in sweet firmness, were decided and unrelenting. All these things, they'd inherited from Sakudo himself and from the wife he adored – he kept his eyes narrowed, slightly embarrassed by the intrusion, but was open enough to listen to what his daughters had to say.

"And why should I do that?"

"Kuku-chan knows her own heart better than we think," Chiyo insisted.

"She's not a baby," Aniko affirmed. "_She _should be allowed to decide whether to marry Kuchiki-san or not."

Sakudo allowed his eyes to fall to Byakuya once again. Slightly pale, face having fallen into a collection of stiff curves and lines, he looked thoroughly put-out. Perhaps he was uncomfortable with being spoken for by such tiny women. Perhaps, in all his isolation as the head of the Kuchiki Clan, he'd forgotten that these girls were very nearly his equals. He looked to Sakudo, betraying nothing and staying quiet.

With a delicate swish of her kimono, very nearly tip-toeing, Mina came close and bent down next to her father. There was the same grey in her eyes as that in Kiyuku's, equally reflective and stern, and to be caught under such a gaze was beguiling – even for an agitated old man like Sakudo.

Leaning forward to speak in a whisper, Mina said, "Kiyuku will make the right choice if it's given to her. She's not a little girl anymore." She tilted her head, lovingly smiled. "If she says yes, no one will regret it. Byakuya wouldn't be here now if he didn't love her enough to love her properly. I promise, Daddy." Then there appeared a more mischievous glimmer about her features. "And if Kiyuku says no, that'll teach Byakuya a decent lesson about being such a prick, don't you think?"

"Language, Mina."

"You know I'm right."

Sakudo sighed, shook his head with resigned pride.

All the while, Byakuya stared hard at the two of them, looking like a little boy awaiting retribution. Comically moving, somehow. Mina retreated back to her younger sisters, and Sakudo considered him seriously for some moments.

Looming silence. A pregnant hush.

Mina _was _right.

"While I hate to be one to go back on my word, my daughters have made a fair point," Sakudo said, feeling once again like a Wise Man on the stands of the Central 46. "I will leave all of this up to Kiyuku. Ask for her hand, Byakuya. Do your best to prove to her that you love her. If she says yes – and _only _if she says it without a doubt in her heart – then you will have my blessing."

An unseen weight seemed to melt from Byakuya's shoulders.

"_However_," Sakudo continued. "If she says no, then that will be the end of it. Out of respect for her, for me and for the long-standing relationship between our families, you will have no further part in her life. Am I understood?"

It was a vicious ultimatum, and it sent a cold chill through Sakudo's chest. This was his best friend's child. This was possibly where the lineage of friendship would end. What would Sōjun have made of it all? Had he been alive, would it all have turned out very differently?

Just about leaping from his place, Byakuya rose to stand. Anxious. Eager to leave. Sakudo hadn't seen him so agitated since the whole fiasco over Hisana.

"I understand, Aramiya-san. Thank you for allowing me this."

Sakudo nodded in spite of himself. "Go. Do your best."

In an ill-concealed flurry, Byakuya rushed toward the shoji – he paused for some moments next to Mina and the twins, giving them a look and muttering something Sakudo couldn't hear. Whatever it was, it made Mina smirk. And then Byakuya was gone, leaving Sakudo to gawk at his daughters with uncertainty. When had they gotten so wise? Or was it merely overwhelming sassiness to which Sakudo had become desensitized over so many years?

He couldn't tell. But he was glad they'd been eavesdropping and had spoken up. For all her tininess and youth, for all the tears she had cried over the last few months, she _was _a woman now and much more privy to the workings of her own heart – and to those of Byakuya's – than Sakudo could ever hope to be. He sighed. The end of an era. One blossom wilts where hopefully another would bloom. A treacherous sense of relief overtook him. At the door, now chittering and giggling amongst themselves, it seemed the girls knew something that he didn't.


	77. The Proposal

Chapter 77  
The Proposal

After Sakudo's ultimatum, Byakuya had spent several days racking his brain. He realised it would all be sudden, and that Kiyuku would probably be caught off guard – in which case, there was a considerable risk of her running away without giving him an answer. The whole thing would have to be done some place from which she couldn't easily escape: somewhere private and very beautiful.

In his mind, Byakuya pictured a breezy morning with the sun cascading down in golden watercolours. The two of them alone and quiet amongst leafy summer blooms. As straightforward and easy as possible so that he could take her in his arms and kiss her without delay.

However, in all his deliberations, Byakuya realised he couldn't simply show up and snatch Kiyuku away – especially since he actually had no particular day in mind, instead waiting for the ideal conditions to _just happen_. There had to be a buildup, something with which he could ease her in. For this purpose, over the last week, Byakuya had sent her flowers. Lotsofthem. Perhaps too many. Several bouquets of orchids – of course – and lilies and camellias. Blushing pinks. Deep crimsons. By now Kiyuku would hopefully have had enough time to consider the symbolism, in which case she would _hopefully _have an inkling of what was to come.

And if she did, was she anxious?

Swelling unease had become the undertone to all Byakuya's moods. Renji had probably noticed it. Rukia too. Frankly, it would be ridiculous if they hadn't – nowadays, Byakuya found it impossible to sit still for too long. He carried the kanzashi from his Grandfather at all times, _just in case_, and found its bejeweled presence impossible to ignore. Even concealed within a box, even within the folds of his robes, it almost burned him. Spurring him on. Egging him to march through to the fifth squad's barracks and propose right that instant. Like an itch. An incessant, demanding itch, with Kiyuku's face at the center of it all.

As such, when Byakuya left his private quarters that morning to find golden-white sunlight awash over Seireitei, he could hesitate no longer. The nagging eagerness was far too much to stomach. The light-headedness and agitation too forceful. He didn't so much as glance in the direction of his office, didn't bother to consider the finer details of what he was about to do. With hurried and purposeful strides, Byakuya single-mindedly made for the fifth squad – for Kiyuku, clinging to her like a heavenly body.

The walk went by in a blur. Distracted to the point that he didn't notice others greet him, feeling his heartbeat reverberate through his skull, he touched the kanzashi constantly.

_If she says yes – and __**only **__if she says yes without a doubt in her heat…_

There was no doubt in Byakuya's. Not anymore. He loved her. Wanted her, just as the winter wanted spring's bloom.

Around the corner and into that fateful corridor; Kiyuku's office loomed at the end of it. Byakuya knocked, was met immediately by the smooth and focused response of her voice bidding him to come in. Too late to turn back. The clock had begun to tick. Everything had set itself in motion. He pushed open the door, stepped in to find Kiyuku at her desk – and she, a pale beauty in amongst the deeply blushing bouquets he had sent, stared. Those peculiar blue eyes, wide and uncertain. Her mouth doing a jump into something between a smile and a grimace. It was silent and it was strange, Byakuya's body full of deliberate intention and yet frozen beneath the pressure of disquietude.

Kiyuku's skin darkened to a darling pink. "B-Byakuya?"

Like a foreign note, Byakuya said her name. A choked whisper, so that he couldn't be sure whether or not she'd heard it. Ridiculous! This anxiety and angst. Never in his life had he been so certain of something – so certain of what he was to do. Such a boyish struggle for composure was absurd and unnecessary. Byakuya cleared his throat, tried to collect himself.

"Are you… alright?" Kiyuku questioned, tilting her head and raising an eyebrow. "You're very pale."

"Perfectly," Byakuya said quickly. He drew a breath, watched Kiyuku's face as it rose and fell into perfect micro-expressions. She wasn't mentioning the flowers. She didn't seem nearly so uptight as Byakuya himself felt – was now the right time? _Was it_? It had to be. "There's something I need to speak to you about. Urgently."

"Oh. Oh, okay–"

"Meet me at the Manor in an hour."

Her features crinkled in confusion. "Why not just tell me now?"

"In an hour," Byakuya reiterated, and rapidly retreated from her office.

In hindsight, it could have gone much more smoothly. He should have been more suave – should've swept her up in his arms, or even just sent a charmingly worded letter of instructions. _This _was not how he had planned for things to go, stumbling over his own heartbeat and feeling sick with nerves. What a fool he must have seemed. Usually so calm and capable – usually so unfeeling – now reduced to a rushing mess. If Kiyuku had thought lowly of him before, it likely wasn't being made much better by his gross lack of self-possession.

Byakuya stared at his reflection in the pond, the near-black water glistening and calm. The face was his, but the dramatic tumbling of insides was not.

This was the best that he'd been able to come up with. The koi pond. There were more beautiful places, more exclusive and lavish places – but, as Byakuya had come to realise, _here _was the only place he would have wanted to do it. Where Kiyuku would sit for hours on end, as much a part of his garden than any of the flowers. Where she had first encroached upon his heart like a climbing rose vine. He had watched her many times, had realised that she was exquisite and somewhat strange and a woman he really liked. Indeed, it sounded juvenile. Soppily sentimental. But Byakuya liked her as a boy liked a girl and he wanted to be with her more than anything in the world of the living or dead.

He stood there for a long time without realising how the hour went by, waiting for Kiyuku without feeling entirely ready for her.

Ready or not though, one of the servants scurried into the garden to announce her arrival – and Kiyuku, following from a distance, marched toward Byakuya with an unsettling look of sweet concern. He dismissed the servant, steeling himself against the possibility of a 'no' but hoping against all sorts of hopeless hope for a 'yes'.

_Only if she says yes without a doubt in her heart…_

"What's this about?" Kiyuku demanded immediately, words sugar-spun and sincere. "Is everything okay?"

For some moments, Byakuya only watched the servant leave. He needed it to be private; he needed it to be only her and him and the golden koi as they swirled in silky circles beneath the pond's bridge. Kiyuku was close. The servant was disappearing into the verandas, making his way for the open door. Closing it–

"Byakuya?"

"Forgive me, Kiyuku."

That was not how he had wanted to start – but at that moment, Byakuya forgot everything he had planned to say.

Drawing a sharp breath, Kiyuku blinked at him. Slow, sporadic blinks, each of which seemed more confused than the one before. "For what?" she questioned, though it sounded thin and false.

"For the way things have turned out," Byakuya said. He stepped towards her, felt his fingers grow stiff at his sides. "I thought everything would have been very different."

"Oh." Kiyuku bit her cheek. "Please, let's just forget about it."

The thud in his ribcage was nauseating, the ache in his lungs unyielding. "I can't."

"It's not–"

"I don't want to live without you, Kiyuku."

At this, Kiyuku's gaze darted to meet his and they both went silent once again. A breezy morning; golden sunlight reflected upon the water and upon the scales of the koi. She didn't seem to notice any of it. For the moment, neither did Byakuya. To think now that he had wanted this to be straightforward and easy – that he had hoped to split open his heart for her without the accompanying disorder and complication. He'd already made a mess of things. It was the inevitable outcome that fixing such a mess would not be 'straightforward and easy'. He sighed.

Finally, Kiyuku replied in a hesitant and quiet voice, "What are you saying?"

With all the thought-out clarity of purpose and yet without any thought at all, Byakuya raised his hand to graze Kiyuku's fingers. "I love you."

A hush. Byakuya allowed his fingers to linger against hers and felt them twitch. As did her lips. Her lids. All of it amounting to a disoriented stare. She said his name, swallowed against nothing. There was a new urgency in the air: a pregnant silence that forced tears to the edges of her eyes. Flushed, looking out of breath, Kiyuku dropped her gaze. "I want to believe you…"

"Then do." Byakuya grasped her hand fully in his and, kissing it, he knelt. "I ought to be ashamed of the way I have hurt you – I am. But I know now, too, that I would be a fool to let you go. So believe me when I say that I love you. I love you and I am so, _so _sorry."

The weighty urgency remained around them. Kiyuku tightened her fingers around Byakuya's, though it seemed more of a reflex than any meaningful gesture. "I don't know what to say."

"Allow me to ask you something then." Standing again, Byakuya placed his free hand against her cheek. Kiyuku appeared to recoil at first but soon enough leaned back into his touch, looking confounded and almost sad. "Kiyuku," Byakuya said. "Will you be my wife?"

Where before her skin was hot and blotchy, Kiyuku paled. "Your – your wife?"

"Yes. My wife."

"This is a proposal?"

"Do I need to get back on one knee?"

"No. I'm just…" Kiyuku held her breath. "I'm very confused."

"Understandable. You don't need to answer me right now." Byakuya said this, knowing full-well that he wanted her to answer _right that moment_. Otherwise it would be another handful of hours, days, weeks filled with anxious distress. Otherwise he wouldn't be able to eat or sleep or even breathe without thinking about her. In hopes of hurrying along her response, Byakuya removed from the pocket of his robes the white box his Grandfather had given him and handed it to Kiyuku. "In the meantime though, please take this."

She did so, hands trembling and slow as she opened the box to peer inside. There was a shimmer across her features; she stared at the diamond and pearl kanzashi for an insufferably long moment; but it was hard to tell exactly what she was thinking. With bated breath, Byakuya waited for Kiyuku to say something. _Yes. I love you too. I'll marry you_. Something.

Only, when she sighed, closing the box once again without meeting his eye, Byakuya felt his limbs disconnect from his body with a terrible sense of foreboding. And when she finally did lift her head, tremendous tears overflowing from the corners of her eyes, she muttered meekly, "After everything…"

"I know. Please forgive me." Byakuya cocooned both her cheeks in his hands, leaned forward as though to kiss her. "Let me make it right."

"How?"

"Any way at all."

Lifting her wrist to wipe away the tears, Kiyuku stared at him through eyes narrowed in thought. "Any way?" she confirmed.

Byakuya nodded.

A sobbed hum. "Well then…" Kiyuku said quietly. "If I marry you, I expect fresh flowers on my desk every week."

Though the tears continued to flow, it seemed as though she had forgotten about them entirely. Byakuya hadn't exactly expected conditions to be part of her answer – then again though, he hadn't really been sure what to expect at all. But what he was being given was far sweeter than a straight out 'no'; and flowers every week – every day, even – was something he'd be more than willing to give Kiyuku. He would shower her in every petal known to man. Every petal in every colour with every scent.

Kiyuku straightened herself, spoke with more confidence. "And if we get married, we will always have dessert after dinner."

"I can manage that."

"And you will kiss me every day."

"Of course."

"And you will never hide your feelings from me ever again."

Hands still on her cheeks, Byakuya stroked her skin with his thumbs. "Never."

"There's one more thing," Kiyuku said. Gazing into his face as one would into the darkness of rain, she just about whispered, "I know you will never stop loving Hisana, and I'm okay with that. But you need to promise that you'll love me with everything you can, and that you will love me for me. Not as your _second _wife, but as your wife. And as your equal. And as your friend."

Byakuya's heart had slowed, though he felt his hands begin to shake. "There would be no other way for me to love you."

And for the first time in a long while, Kiyuku smiled. A shattering, tender smile – the type with which she had enchanted Byakuya the night they'd first kissed amongst the hydrangea, and every other night and day after that. Rose-tinted pinkness washed itself over her cheeks. She sniffed against the final tears as they were swallowed away behind her lids, and touched a hand to her cheek. A soft giggle. An ever fiercer trembling about her fingers.

"In that case," Kiyuku said. "I would really like to be your wife."

Byakuya swallowed against the angst which refused to release him. "Is that a yes then?"

"You fool. Of course it's a yes."

She'd said yet. Fuck. Yes. She'd said yes. Overwhelmed by the crashing sense of release and thrill, Byakuya circled his arms around Kiyuku and pulled her into him. Like a perfect medley. Her body lined itself against his, the kanzashi held to her chest with one hand while the other held his cheek in its smooth warmth. They kissed unashamedly. Clutched each other as though this were the very first and last time they would ever be together: with desperation and with glorious defeat. It surged through Byakuya's chest, set on fire like bursting constellations every inch of his skin.


	78. Wedding Planning

Chapter 78  
Wedding Planning

Aramiya-taichou's office was busier than it had ever been. In amongst paperwork and missions, there was always someone paying a visit – some distant relative or family-friend, bringing with them gifts and well-wishes for the upcoming wedding. Hinamori felt terrible that she couldn't do a better job of keeping out the unholy amount of guests. Even as a noblewoman, poor Aramiya-taichou probably hadn't ever entertained so many people for so long in her entire life – however, in spite her introverted streak, she didn't seem to mind.

On the contrary, Aramiya-taichou was absolutely glowing.

When there weren't visitors flooding through their doors, Hinamori would often find herself helping Aramiya-taichou with wedding planning. Filling out documents; signing things; administration stuff – but stuff that had to do with the wedding nonetheless. And it was thrilling. Hinamori loved weddings. What was more, she loved how breathlessly excited her captain was. Aramiya-taichou always spoke quickly and delightedly, as though every little detail were the most wonderful thing in the world.

_So this document has to be submitted to the Noble Assembly and then these ones have to go to the Administration Bureau and then we'll have to complete this one on the day of the wedding… There's still so much to do! _

Perhaps the best part of it all was the fact that there were flowers being delivered to the office every single week. Spectacular bouquets of the most exquisite textures and colours and scents. Lots of pinks and whites; the pastel shades of stolen mornings and blushing cheeks. Every. Single. Week. Always with a note that had Aramiya-taichou's name handwritten on the front.

The flowers always arrived the morning after Aramiya-taichou's day off, and it was Hinamori's duty to see that they were placed safely upon her captain's desk.

It was no mystery that the flowers came from Kuchiki-taichou, and it was easy to guess at what the notes amongst the florals said. Still, by a mischievous sense of curiosity, Hinamori battled constantly against the urge to sneak a peek. Rangiku and the others had taken to asking personal – bordering offensive – questions about Kuchiki and Aramiya-taichou's relationship. Did they hold hands in front of Hinamori? Yes, they did. Had they ever kissed in front of her? Not purposefully. Had Hinamori ever walked in on a steamy office rendezvous? Apart from that one time all those months ago – which in itself hadn't exactly been 'steamy' – no. Kuchiki and Aramiya-taichou's relationship seemed perfectly chaste in the public sphere. Hinamori didn't necessarily want to know about the private.

Nonetheless, she _did _wonder about the notes. And on this particular day, placing the latest crystal vase of peonies on Aramiya-taichou's desk, Hinamori felt her fingers burn with eagerness. One little look wouldn't hurt – but she was being so terribly nosey! – no one would know though – unless someone walked in – but hardly anyone was around at this time of morning. It was only a small note. She would be able to open and read and close it within seconds. One little look wouldn't hurt.

From amongst the fragile faces of the peonies, Hinamori plucked out the note and considered it. Fine between her fingers. _Kiyuku _scrawled across the front in calligraphy.

Such a tiny paper made her feel horrendously guilty. She shouldn't have even thought of reading it – this little message between lovers, in which she was a monstrous intruder. Prying open the note was like disturbing a deeply intimate meeting. Trailing her eyes over the words was like stripping naked the delicate line between authority and affection. Just this once though. Hinamori held her breath.

_To the one I love._

_Byakuya_

And in spite of herself, she squealed. So simple. So clear and sweet – and so very unexpected of the ever stolid Kuchiki-taichou.

Hurrying to replace the note in amongst the flowers, Hinamori was not disappointed. She did nothing to restrain her smile, felt her heart do a little jump at the tenderness of it all. Like a fairytale. Not so long ago, Aramiya-taichou had been miserable and grey. She'd kept herself so busy, had even slept at her desk some nights. Though Hinamori still didn't know what exactly had happened between Kuchiki and Aramiya-taichou – no one was too sure, really – she was so happy that things had turned out like this.

That Aramiya-taichou smiled every day and that Kuchiki-taichou looked at her like she was the most precious thing.

"Good morning, Hinamori."

Hinamori spun on her toes, feeling she'd been caught red-handed. "Taichou!"

Arms full of folders, hair pulled back from her face, Aramiya-taichou was flushed and pretty. The image of a soon-to-be blushing bride, though the wedding was still some months away. She tilted her head, gave a peculiar smile. "Why do you look so flustered?" she questioned.

"N-no reason!" Hinamori touched her cheeks. "I was just dropping off your flowers…"

Aramiya-taichou glanced to the peonies. A glistening softness waved itself across her features. Spanning the space between the door and her desk, saying nothing as she placed down the folders, she took the note from the arrangement and read over it. Hinamori imagined the words as Aramiya-taichou must have seen them, feeling herself grow restless with pleasure. How lucky she was to know such things! To be privy to these secret little moments of affection – like the note, and the occasions Kuchiki-taichou would visit Aramiya-taichou's office and play with her hair or kiss her on the cheek. So romantic! So unlike the hard and capable characters shown to the rest of the world!

Aramiya-taichou, smiling, placed the note in her drawer and returned her attention to Hinamori once again.

"I hope you don't mind, but I've reallocated some of your work. There's something more important I need from you."

"Anything, taichou," Hinamori nodded.

Pressing her hands against the table, Aramiya-taichou blushed more deeply. "You see, my sisters and I have developed a sort of tradition – whenever there's a wedding, we get together to pick out materials for kimonos," she explained. "I've already chosen mine, but my sisters will be coming this morning for theirs. I have a bunch of silks in my private quarters to choose from…"

There was a pause. Hinamori felt watched for a reaction.

"Umm. Okay. But what do you need me to do, taichou?"

"I'd like you to join us."

Another pause, this one more confused. Hinamori giggled uncertainly, "You want me to help your sisters choose material for their kimonos?"

Aramiya-taichou raised her eyebrows. "No, silly," she said. "I want you to come choose material for your _own _kimono."

"_Me_?" Her _own _kimono? For Aramiya-taichou's wedding? Hinamori hadn't even been so sure she'd be invited – it was a noble wedding; surely not just everyone and anyone would be there. She posed the question, surprised while not trying to be insolent, and received a startled look from Aramiya-taichou in return.

"What do you mean? Obviously you're invited!" Aramiya-taichou cried. Then more quietly, as though confiding in Hinamori, she continued with a dewy smile, "There's only a select handful of people I couldn't image my life without. Surprising as it might seem, you're one of them. I'm not trying to be sentimental, but I appreciate everything you do – and if you weren't my lieutenant, I'd very much like to think of you as a friend."

At this, Hinamori could have cried. A friend. Aramiya-taichou's friend – it was a status afforded to no one that Hinamori knew of. Which made it something of an honour.

"Taichou…" she muttered, just about ready to hug her captain and sob into her shoulder. But Hinamori contained herself, though her heart performed a heavy thud once again. She held her hands firmly at her sides, feeling as though she were accepting her most important mission yet. "It would be my greatest privilege to join you and your sisters, taichou! But you'll have to give me some time to get ready. That one time I met your father, I think I looked like a ruffian. I cannot let your sisters think the same thing, taichou."

Fondling the petals of a peony, Aramiya-taichou only laughed.


	79. Bride

Chapter 79  
Bride

Kiyuku stared. Long and hard, she gazed at the image of white. Adorned by shimmering patterns of florals and cranes, draped in layers upon layers of kimono that fell and pooled against her body like silken water. Lips painted a deep crimson; hair delicately clipped by the orchid kanzashi. Like some fine china doll, Kiyuku's own face stared back. Her reflection. Her – she was a _bride_.

Self-consciously, she lifted a hand to trace the outline of her face.

Alongside her, her sisters cooed and fussed.

_She was a bride_.

By now, after the months it had taken for this wedding to be planned, she should have been used to the idea. After all the meetings with the Aramiya and Kuchiki elders, after being wrapped up in silk after silk to find just the right shades of white – it shouldn't have jolted her so to see herself like this. More than that, she shouldn't have felt so thoroughly watched by unseen eyes. The eyes of the little girl who'd decided to never get married, or the teenager who'd shunned boys because she had more important things to do. Now, however, considering herself with trembling hands, nothing in the world seemed more important than this moment and day. Nothing could have been nearly so singularly crucial.

"Kuku-chan!"

"You look so pretty!"

"Our baby sister is all grown up!"

While it was customary for handmaids to dress the bride, it was a job which Mina and the twins had gladly taken over. And Kiyuku had loved it, the primping and the pampering – as though they were playing. Playing with very expensive cosmetics and perfumes. Playing dress-up with kimonos which the Kuchiki seamstresses had spent several months making. Quite innocent and childlike. However, having come face-to-face with the vivid reality of her reflection, her face looking prettier than she'd ever seen it and her body having vanished beneath the soft layers of embroidered white, Kiyuku's chest contracted upon itself.

How different it all was. The only white garment she'd ever pictured herself wearing was a captain's haori. The only wedding she'd ever imagined herself attending were those of her sisters. Even over the last few months, through which she had floated upon a fuzzy daydream, Kiyuku hadn't quite realised that it was _actually _happening. That she would actually be dressing up in the white kimono and performing san-san-kudo and becoming Byakuya's wife.

_Byakuya's wife_!

The thought had occurred to her, obviously, but it was hazy and fantastical in comparison to certain other things. Like what food would be served at the reception and the flowers that would decorate the tables. And what documents had to be filled out and submitted. And the wedding night.

Oh, yes. _The wedding night_. Somehow, it loomed over Kiyuku more vividly than the wedding itself. Foreign and ominously foregrounded. Some abstract thing which until now had been perfectly acceptable to her because it had been unattainable. Pushing the boundaries had been fine because the likelihood of actually crossing them had been low. There'd never been any immediate threat to her or to the virginity which she had unconsciously prized. A marker of her independence and individuality. Belonging to no one but herself.

Only now she was going to be giving it to Byakuya. The one part of herself which wasn't already his.

It was all very confusing. Kiyuku wanted to do it – to give herself wholly and without question to the man she loved – and was excited enough that her stomach was all aflutter. She liked the idea of what was to come, though her sisters had made a concerted effort to tell her that the first time would be painful and strange. That her wall of innocence remained intact was by no lack of desire or some outdated sense of pre-wedding chastity. On the contrary, slipping hands and throbbing aches had become a fairly common occurrence over the last few months. There'd been touching and kissing and thirsty suggestion – but never anything close to the actual thing.

Whenever it reached that point, Kiyuku tended to side-step and occupy herself with something else entirely. Like talking about their wedding's seating arrangement, or sipping for an unnecessarily long time on glasses of plum wine.

There wouldn't be any of that that evening though. Just her and Byakuya and the weighty sense of expectation. Together. Married. They were going to be husband and wife, and would be naked to consummate it. She, without the slightest ounce of experience; he, probably knowing exactly what to do. Perhaps that was what bothered her the most – _not knowing_. Like an unmolded clay in Byakuya's hands. She would be vulnerable and exposed and thoroughly at the mercy of someone much more proficient than her in the language of… sex.

"You're so pale, Kuku," Mina said, coming up behind Kiyuku and taking her hand. "Are you alright? Feeling nervous?"

"Not at all," Kiyuku quavered and it wasn't a lie. She wasn't nervous – nervous was a gross understatement.

In spite of such obvious agitation though, Mina smiled. "You make a beautiful bride."

"The _most _beautiful bride!" Aniko cried. "I'm jealous."

To which Chiyo nodded. "I bet Kuchiki-san is going to cry when he sees you."

Kiyuku eyed her reflection once again. The sparkling tumble of white material, enshrouding her like a pure and smooth mist; the faint blush upon her cheeks and the marvelously deep red of her lips. In her hair, exquisitely snowy against the amber shade, the diamond and pearl kanzashi sparkled. Kiyuku had never seen Byakuya cry, and it was unlikely that she ever would – however, she hoped that seeing her would bring him close enough to it.

Tears welling in her own eyes, Kiyuku lifted her head to stare up at the roof. Couldn't muck up the makeup. Mina had spent forever getting it right. She couldn't look at her own reflection anymore either. Not if it made _her _as emotional as this. Brides were pristine and ethereal. Brides didn't cry, not even happy-tears.

"Oh Lord! She's shedding tears," Aniko shrieked. "Get something for her to wipe her face!"

"Don't be dumb," Kiyuku retorted, biting at the inside of her cheek. "There's just something in my eye."

The twins laughed at her. Mina shushed them and went about tidying the feminine stew of a mess in which the room had found itself. As she did so, Kiyuku kept her head up and still in an attempt to quell the swollen tears – weird, unwieldy tears which refused to relent. She ran over the day's schedule in her mind as a further distraction: they'd be leaving the Manor soon for the Kuchiki family shrine. The ceremony wouldn't last long. She would have to remember to take miniscule sips of the sake during the san-san-kudo ritual. Remember to greet Byakuya's aunts at the reception. Remember to eat. She hadn't eaten anything yet. Maybe she shouldn't eat anything so as to not be bloated by the time the wedding was over.

So that she would look good naked.

On the other side of the room, the shoji slid open and Kiyuku's limbs went stiff. Restlessly, she smoothed out the already impeccable material in her lap, stroked the stray locks of hair behind her ears. She only needed to put on her sandals. Spritz some more perfume into her neck – although, in her agitation, perhaps she had already overdone it on the perfume.

As finely groomed as a regal feline, Mama peeked through the open shoji and gasped.

Kiyuku was relieved to leave the sight of the mirror. Realised how eager she'd been for her mother to arrive. Tip-toeing towards the shoji, watched by her sisters as the delicate train of the kimono swished behind her, Kiyuku reached out to take her mother's hands, soft and cool.

"You are exquisite, my dearest," Mama said, sounding shaken herself. "How are you feeling?"

Lowering her voice so as to keep Mina and the twins from hearing, Kiyuku felt her face grow hot as she mumbled, "Kind of scared."

"Marrying a Kuchiki must be scary. Luckily you're scarier."

Kiyuku giggled.

Then came her father's voice from the other side of the shoji. "Can we come in yet?"

_We_? Who was we? At the mention of this unnamed plural, Kiyuku tilted her head and gave her mother a wide-eyed look of confusion – to which Mama only smiled slyly, shaking her head. A sigh. She flattened her palm against Kiyuku's cheek and pressed firmly for some moments. "I am so proud of you," Mama whispered. Then, turning as though to speak to the doorway itself, she said more loudly, "Come – she's ready."

In stepped Papa, catching sight of Kiyuku and seeming to freeze. He stared at her, mouth splitting to hang with caught breath while Kiyuku stared back. A fragile pretense hung between them, brutally mixed with delight and trepidation and a hint of sadness. She'd never admit it, but Kiyuku liked being her dad's littlest girl. He'd loved her first. He'd always love her – and when he brought his hands to his lips, features crumpling as though to cry, Kiyuku felt her own heart implode with marvelous emotion.

"My baby… You're-_you're_…" Papa choked.

Kiyuku threw her head back again, shook her hands at her cheeks to dry tears before they came. "Don't cry, Papa. You'll make me cry and it'll ruin my face."

A watery chuckle. "Sorry. You're just… you're so beautiful."

"I agree." The mysterious 'we', voice stolid and gravely, came in to stand beside Papa. Upright despite the shocking effects of age upon his face, gazing at Kiyuku with fierce firmness as though to scold her, the man frightened off any tears from both Kiyuku's eyes and her father's. She held her breath, an obstinate upsurge in her pulse which she silently prayed would not show on her face, sensing her sisters also grow stiffly silent behind her. One of the Kuchiki elders was supposed to escort them to the shrine – Kiyuku hadn't expected it would be Kuchiki Ginrei.

Shuffling before him, holding her head up with more confidence than she felt, Kiyuku offered the best bow she could muster in so many layers of tightly-bound kimono. "Kuchiki-dono! It's an honour to have you here with us today."

"You may call me Grandfather."

Kiyuku bounced back to stand straight, resisting the urge to gawk. "Pardon me?"

Such familiar eyes. The same grey as bruised clouds, and just as tender. It was disconcerting. Kuchiki Ginrei, features unmoving from the solemn mask though he spoke with more warmth than Kiyuku had thought possible, placed a hand on her shoulder. A hand which was surprisingly strong for being but crinkled flesh over bird-light bone – one with a deliberate grasp, heavy with nostalgia. He'd touched her shoulder like this often when she was a child. Like the time he'd said she 'had potential'.

Ever so slightly, Kuchiki Ginrei leaned towards her, speaking with the low tone of a schemer. "I've always thought you'd make a good Kuchiki."

More tears threatened. Kiyuku lifted her head, slightly more slightly this time. "Thank you~!" she just about squealed. "I can't wait to join the Kuchiki family, Kuchiki-dono."

"You may call me Grandfather." Then he straightened himself, turning with unexpected grace to make for the shoji once again. "Now come. It's about time we leave."

Kiyuku scurried to the mirror once more, glancing between herself and the gloriously flushed face of her father as he beamed at her.

* * *

**A/N: Nicey-nice!**

**So, dear readers... Only one chapter left before the end. :O I can't believe how quickly it has come. But we'll leave the sentimentality for the next Author's Note. For now, make my day and leave a little review~! **


	80. Consummation

Chapter 80  
Consummation

Gently, so that the walls seemed to tremble, a low roll of thunder sounded in the distance. Enclosed by the evening's threat of rain, drowsy in the greying light, Byakuya seated himself upon the futon. Their wedding had been very different from his first – much more pomp and pageantry; much more excitement to accompany the formalities. And by all accounts, it had been an exceptional day, though for Byakuya it had gone by in a rushed and blurry panorama. One of faces and voices, blithely accepted congratulations, and hazy jewel tones of light and colour.

However, there was one thing that had imprinted itself on Byakuya. Vivid in his mind's eye, so effortlessly exquisite – the image of Kiyuku as she sipped from the sake cup during san-san-kudo. The red rim meeting her red lips. A stunning contrast to the pallor of her hands and the unsullied whiteness of her kimono. He had watched her drink in careful, dainty tastes, and likewise had felt her eyes on him when he sipped from the cup. Her fingers had been trembling; she'd hardly seemed to breathe at his side. And when the ceremony was over, when they were pronounced husband and wife, Kiyuku had clutched his hand. A most perfect, desperate hold which had endured all through the reception.

Kuchiki Kiyuku. There was a fated ring to it.

His bride. Pale as the sakura and even more radiant. All through the day, Byakuya had wanted to touch the ivory smoothness of her cheek. Kiss her. Steal her away to some distant corner of the Manor, away from the absorbed attention of relatives and family-friends, so she could be his alone.

They'd be alone now – shared quarters, a shared bed – without distraction. His wife. Her husband. For this moment, Byakuya would have been willing to sit through a thousand more weddings: the moment when he would at last peel away the separating layers of material from her body to see and feel and kiss her freely. Kuchiki Kiyuku, who'd smiled at him with uncharacteristically sheepish timidity whenever he'd caught her staring; who was beautiful as she was impossible.

The thought sustained Byakuya as he waited. The slow patter of spring rain began to fall outside; a breezy chill swept itself through the thin folds of his yukata.

Then at last, the shoji slid open. Hair windswept like flames around her face, kimono removed and replaced by a white yukata of her own, Kiyuku stood blushingly in the doorway. Unsure of herself, swaying slightly, she stared at Byakuya. Waiting, biting her lip.

Byakuya held out his hand to her and murmured lowly, "Come here."

The delicate curves in her neck and shoulders – the faint outline of her breasts beneath the material – her bare, milky feet tapping the floor as she tiptoed towards him. Taking his hand, Kiyuku kneeled down onto the futon alongside him. There remained a wine-like stain upon her lips, a smudged darkness about her eyes like a blotchy shadow. Oddly pretty. A delicate, vulnerable contrast to the pristine and spectacular bride of earlier. She drew breaths with unnatural slowness, and Byakuya could feel her fingers quivering with greater vehemence than before.

"Don't be so nervous."

"I'm not nervous," Kiyuku insisted.

"Then why are you shaking?"

She said nothing, but tightened her hold on his hand. Byakuya wasn't going to pretend to understand her apprehension – the clumsy avoidances and insecurity of the last few months. However, it wasn't off-putting. Not at all. He lifted Kiyuku's hand to his lips and grazed each knuckle with a kiss. "We don't have to do anything tonight. Not if you don't want to."

Her eyes widened, the mismatched blue-greys glinting with something of the absurd. "That's not… _I want to_," Kiyuku leaned in towards him with an innocent look of embarrassment. "I just can't wrap my head around it."

"Around what?"

"We're married," she said and gave a slanted, flushed attempt at a smile. "We're married… and I've been really excited. I've been thinking about it all day. About – umm – _this_. But the more I think about it, the more I realise I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to do and I don't–"

Byakuya interrupted her with a sigh. A shake of his head. "It's not that complicated."

Then, curving his arm around her waist, grasping her nape with his other hand, he pulled Kiyuku towards him and kissed her lips.

A heaved sigh passed between them – something between resignation and relief – and Kiyuku's spine went rigged for some moments before being lulled back into Byakuya's hold. He relished the soft press of her mouth, the pressure of her palms as they flattened against his chest. A familiar touch; one which sent a thousand pin-pricks along his limbs. There was but one thing left to do, and there was no rush to do it. Without the burden of barriers, as much hers as he could ever possibly be, the need for passionate hurry fell away to be replaced by a sensual sense of the eternal. They had forever. He could taste her like this forever and it wouldn't matter.

Tenderly, feeling his way around her waist as one would around crystal, Byakuya pivoted Kiyuku's body so that she lay backwards against the futon. Hair splayed in amber waves across the pillow, fingers trailing their way down his forearms, she gazed up at Byakuya with pursed lips and affected paleness while he balanced himself over her. While he stroked the hot smoothness of her cheeks, considering the gentle rise and fall of her throat as she swallowed against nothing. With unhurried quietness, he lowered his face against Kiyuku's neck to plant suckling kisses: behind her ear, down along the tendons, into the hollow curves of her collarbone. A shuddering groan reverberated from her chest, seeming to journey through into Byakuya's lips and down his spine.

He untied the sash of her yukata. Let the flimsy material fall open to reveal the creamy flesh of her stomach. Her jutting hipbones. The plane of skin between her breasts. A landscape of finely carved muscle and bone over which Byakuya cast his eyes.

Beneath him, Kiyuku shuffled, exhaling sharply. "Byakuya…"

"_Ssh_."

He continued to ravish her shoulder with kisses, cursorily taking her collarbones between his teeth. At the same time, angling himself in Kiyuku's grasp as she held her arms around his neck, listening to the hushed whimpers which escaped her, Byakuya caressed the delicate curvature of her ribcage. Down and then up again to push the yukata from her shoulders completely and to clasp the fine mounds of her breasts – deceptively larger than he'd thought, and warmly soft. Kneading. Stroking. Eliciting a shocked gasp of the same intensity as the first breath of air after drowning.

With fidgeting quickness, arms releasing themselves, Kiyuku attempted to undo the tie of Byakuya's own yukata. Apparently holding her breath. Looking flustered – and when she did manage to claim a clumsy victory over the sash, she sat up slightly to remove the yukata from Byakuya's body. Her fingertips grazed his shoulders, sneaking beneath the material and tugging it away with deft flicks of her wrists. Ever more eager and starved, Byakuya shook off the garment in its entirety to feel Kiyuku's bare and slender frame against his, a stirring point of contact – one which inspired mounting aches like stolen heartbeats. Her legs became entangled between his, hands travelling tentatively down along his torso before Byakuya clutched each of her wrists.

Pinning them above her head, his lips began a descent downwards: down from her neck into the boney valley of her cleavage, between the concave dip of her ribcage and along the chiseled muscle of her stomach. Kiyuku moaned again, muttered his name as her body did a delightful arch beneath his touch. With her legs curving inwards on either side of his body, Byakuya traced the space between her hipbones with his tongue, all the while savoring his wife's breathy hums with greedy yearning.

In his growing impatience, Byakuya didn't notice one of Kiyuku's wrists slip out from his grip. Not until she gripped his hair, gently tugging.

"B-Byakuya. Please– _please_ just wait for a second."

He retreated from the defenseless skin of her torso to lean his face over hers once again, gazing intently into the darkened colour of her eyes. "What is it?"

"This is a stupid question, but…" she shifted again, coyly touched her free hand to Byakuya's chest. "Is it going to hurt? I mean, I know it will, but I've never paid enough attention to know – to know how badly."

His wife beneath him: watercolours of pink and white in blotchy beauty across her face. Her body naked amongst an erotic confusion of stripped yukata; her eyes dewy and glazed by a bridal cocktail of tiredness and desire. Byakuya cocooned Kiyuku's cheek in his hand and traced his thumb across her skin, doing his best to ignore for the moment the dull burn in his gut under Kiyuku's expectant stare.

"It'll hurt," he said simply. And then he kissed her again with patient adoration, murmuring into her lips when he spoke again, "But only for a little while. And it'll be worth it."

Kiyuku angled her head away and into Byakuya's touch. Airily, she kissed his palm and sighed with what was easy to consider a sense of respite, nuzzling his hand before looking back to him with imploring passion. Quietly, as though to bypass the ears of unseen listeners, Kiyuku whispered, "I love you, Byakuya."

And without a doubt, Byakuya replied in equal measure, "I love you too."

That night, rain tumbling down from the heavens in impassioned streams while thunder rolled with melancholy resonance, Kiyuku slept in his arms. His friend. His wife. His lover at last. Perfectly cossetted against his body as they breathed the same slow, satisfied breaths. And in his dreams, Byakuya fell down into unending darkness. Unending darkness in which a thousand fragile flowers cascaded around him in iridescent softness. Petals slipped against his skin, the paper butterflies of nights long-gone quivering upon the sinews and bone as they whispered their unknotting poetry. Paper butterflies like orchids. Paper butterflies of pink and red and amber against the nakedness of Byakuya's flesh.

The nakedness of which he was no longer shamed. Such vulnerable fragility of which he was no longer ashamed.

And from amongst the butterflies, like a velvety sun out of black water, came a body upon flowing red silk. A body of flesh and blood as his own, as ripe with beauty as the forbidden loveliness of the flowers. Surrounding him. Enveloping him. Warm calm – enveloping him like love. He felt the wings of the butterflies flutter in his veins; the long-dead pulse of a paper heartbeat as it resounded back to full-bodied life. And he felt the tender caress of her hands upon his fingers – his limbs – his chest and neck and face. He saw her face. Felt her name melt from his lips like honeyed pollen. _Kiyuku. _Adored. _Kiyuku_. Loved. _Kiyuku, Kiyuku, Kiyuku_. The slow-blooming blossom of his noble reason and the red-winged butterfly of reckless delight. The woman he loved, wholly and completely. _Kuchiki Kiyuku_.

* * *

**A/N: THE END!  
**

**What an exquisite journey it's been - this was my first fanfic (first completed story ever, actually) and I am so happy with the outcome! A tremendous thank you to all those who read, followed, favourited and REVIEWED... Having a bunch of peeps along for the romantic ride was incredibly encouraging, and I really hope that you _all_ loved reading Noble Reason and Reckless Delights as much as I loved writing it.**

**See you again real soon! Until then, be sure to leave a final little review with your thoughts. xoxo**


	81. AN EPILOGUE

**A/N: SURPRISE **_**SURPRISE**_**! Here's an epilogue everybody. ;)**

**Epilogue**

**(10 Years after the Thousand Year Blood War)**

It may have been ten years, but Shunsui still couldn't shake the feeling that this was not his office – couldn't convince himself that the old eyes of Yamajii were not hawkishly fixed on his every move. Indeed, he was the Gotei 13's Captain-Commander. Yet, still, he felt like an impostor: some poor excuse of a waif following in Yamajii's footsteps. Would the feeling ever go away? Shunsui wasn't so sure.

The view was totally worth it though.

Cup of tea between his fingertips, Shunsui stood out upon the office balcony with a sense of awe. For miles out, he could see the Seireitei – just about shimmering beneath the golden-white wash of sunlight, new and restored with fresh glory. It was like he could smell it. Upon the breeze. Through the streets. That youthful scent of blossoms and courage as the Soul Society pushed upwards and onwards against beasts of the past.

Below him, Shunsui could see everyone and everything, like tiny dolls rushing about their business. He could pinpoint all the barracks, some of the noble manors. A landscape of movement amongst ivory buildings and golden roofs, beneath the bursting pink sakura – which, from this high up, looked rather like tufts of candy floss.

Had Yamajii gotten used to this view? This magnificent and transcendent feeling? Impossible.

Shunsui heaved a wistful sigh, feeling the morning's air run cool through his chest. He looked out upon the Seireitei and, beginning to grin, pretended not to notice the heavy creak of the door behind him, nor the excited scurry of reiatsu as a tiny trespasser shunpo'ed across the office.

There was the scratch of a chair, an uncomfortable shuffling – then there was nothing but silence once again.

"My, my," Shunsui murmured with a grin. By now, his tea was cold. He threw it back and left the cup out on the balcony.

The office lay undisturbed. Only the door was slightly ajar where before it had been closed. The chair at his desk was pushed back at an angle. Silent as a bird's fluttering, Shunsui could hear the stifled, excited breaths of the intruder. He chuckled as softly as he could. "Well now. How strange. I could have _sworn _I heard the door opening~"

No response. Shunsui eyed out the desk as though it would spontaneously grow feet and run away. He went toward it, making to be as casual as possible – whistling with an exaggerated lack of rhythm, hands held behind his back. There was another shuffling from the alcove of the desk, this time with the eagerness of a puppy in a box. Rounding the table's corner, beginning to tip-toe as though the intruder was unable to see him, Shunsui steeled himself. Restrained his laughter. Bent down–

"Boo!"

There was no one.

Nothing but a cubicle of varnished wood.

Shunsui's eyes widened and narrowed as he straightened himself. He touched his cheek, restraining a smirk. "Well now, do my ears deceive me?" he said to nothing, boisterous and brisk, realising how very absurd he must have seemed. "Was it but the wind that blew through my office?"

Like a phantom, there came a giggle: soft and sweet, low enough that any other old man may not have heard. Chime-like. Smug. Shunsui glanced over his shoulder, failing to catch sight of the unseen prowler but feeling the simmer of reiatsu at his back. He spun around and – with a roaring _Aha!_ – grabbed the intruder, squeezing their little figure tightly between his arms and chest. High-pitched squeals of delight and resistance resounded through the office. Thrusting the intruder up into the air, Shunsui was met with a face brightly flushed and familiar. A black scruff of a ponytail, untamed and messy around apple-pink cheeks. A toothy mosaic of a grin.

Doing nothing now to restrain his hearty laughter, Shunsui poked his finger into the little boy's side. "You _almost_ got me this time, Sōjun-chan!"

The hazy blue eyes exploded with childish pleasure. "I did! _I did_!" Sōjun declared. Then, throwing his doll-like arms into the air, he added with glee, "Mommy and Daddy have been teaching me shunpo!"

"Oh my," Shunsui grinned. "Aren't you a little young for that?"

Chin held high in pride with a signature smirk to match, the little boy raised his eyebrows. "I am _just _the right age."

Shunsui chuckled, setting Sōjun down. The boy was only just as tall as Shunsui's hip, and though he had the daring to compensate for his diminutive stature, he was also too cute – too wide-eyed and buzzing with excitement – to be taken very seriously. Even with his father's angular sharpness, offset by curving dimples and a charming scatter of freckles. Fortunately, he had inherited neither of his parents' tempers, and so was cooed over by Shinigami like the baby prince of the Seireitei – much to the Kuchiki family's simultaneous thrill and horror.

Speaking of which, it was rare to see him without one of his parents following closely at his side. Raising his eyebrows at the little boy, Shunsui cocked his head. "Tell me, young man, who was supposed to be looking after you today?"

"Daddy," Sōjun said, smile giving way to a full-bodied pout as he fisted his hands against his hips. "But it was no fun in Daddy's office today – Uncle Renji brought Ichika and she's _so annoying_. She keeps saying _she's _going to be a captain before me because she's bigger." Sōjun shook his head in comical dismay. "Girls are so dumb."

Shunsui hummed. "But what about Mommy? Is she dumb?"

"Mommy isn't a girl. She's a Lady." Sōjun gave a dainty nod, as though agreeing with himself. "It's also much nicer in her office. She _always_ has _snacks_ because she's always _eating_."

"She's going to give Daddy a big smack if she finds out he lost you again."

Sōjun only shrugged, pink lips parting into a Kuchiki-esque grin once again. "Daddy will find me before Mommy finds out ~ he usually does. It's like we're playing hide and seek, you see!" He spun on his toes, darted towards the desk in a boyish flurry of limbs and white material – like a little haori. Clambering onto Shunsui's chair, Sōjun seated himself at the desk in a charming attempt at playing-Captain-Commander. "But if Daddy comes here too quickly, you must pretend you haven't seen me. Okay, Ojisan? You must tell Daddy that I've disappeared."

"Ah!" Shunsui cooed, meandering up to the little boy. "Like magic."

"Exactly! _Magic_!"

Delightedly, Sōjun's eyes shimmered, their blue starriness movingly familiar. He grinned at Shunsui, who touched the rim of his hat and chuckled once more under such exquisite attention. "Well then," Shunsui said. "What shall I do with you until your father arrives?"

In the drawers of his desk, Shunsui always kept blank papers and an old calligraphy brush. He took them out, set them across the floor by his chair for Sōjun to employ as he pleased, and then made a poor attempt at resuming with his own admin. Futile, of course, since he glanced continually to the little boy at his side to grin and coo and compliment the marvelous doodlings. _Paperwork_, Sōjun called it. _Just like Mommy!_ Just like Mommy indeed, his tiny body bent over the papers with rigorous focus as he drowned his brush in ink and splattered it in all directions in a childish mimic of calligraphy.

Quick to bore though, Shunsui was soon up from his desk once again in search of a suitable snack for the little boy: he offered him an orange, but no no, oranges were gross. What about an apple? Only peasants ate apples. Sōjun would settle for nothing less than a banana – three bananas, at that.

They had a short tea party with Shunsui's finest china, and then Shunsui told a story about how a pair of zanpakuto named Mubōna and Yorokobi single-handedly managed to orchestrate a mischievous series of events throughout the Seireitei, and then Sōjun was rolling around in Shunsui's kimono like a little white rosebud.

It was only when the boy returned his attention to his initial paperwork that the office doors burst open. A red-faced redhead stormed the room, her gold-lined haori billowing in a magnificent breezing of silk. Beneath the material, her hakama hung comfortably around her swollen stomach, falling in graceful black folds as she dashed towards little Sōjun. Behind her, looking very pale and very steely-faced, her husband followed cautiously.

Sōjun leaped from his place on the floor, flinging himself against Kiyuku with exaggerated and careless thrill.

"Mommy! You found me!" he cried, shrill and adorable. "You _found _me!"

"After looking everywhere, you little fiend!" Kiyuku said in turn, straining to bend down to be eye-level with her son. She squeezed his cheeks in her hands, narrowed her eyes at him though she looked far from being angry. Then, with all the forceful affection which never ceased to surprise the lieutenants and captains, she pressed a multitude of kisses to Sōjun's forehead. "You are the naughtiest thing!" Kiss. "No sweets for a week!" Kiss. "Now show me all these drawings you've been doing." Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.

While she ignored Shunsui, thoroughly absorbed by Sōjun as he held up all his papers and doodles, lovingly and absent-mindedly stroking her stomach as he did so, Byakuya stepped around her as one would around a small and dangerous animal. Graceful, uncertain. He came up to Shunsui, features in a chiseled mask. "Please accept my apologies, Captain-Commander," he said. "Sōjun appears to be going through a… phase of sorts."

"You were exactly the same as a little boy," Shunsui smirked.

"Never."

Lifting her head for only the shortest moment, Kiyuku shook her head at Byakuya. "You were so much worse~" And then she promptly returned her attention, wide-eyed and flushedly glowing as a spring blossom, to her son as he spoke with dramatic hand gestures and excited giggles.

The corner of Byakuya's mouth twitched. He cleared his throat, looked back to Shunsui. "I say this every time, but Sōjun won't disturb you again."

"Please," Shunsui waved his hand. "I enjoy this sort of quality time with my godson." He leaned in, raising his eyebrows. "So long as it doesn't get you into too much trouble, Kuchiki-taichou."

With a rare sense of resignation, Byakuya sighed quietly. "It seems I'm always in trouble, nowadays."

"Not long now until your due date."

"I can hardly keep an eye on _that _one as it is." And for a moment, Byakuya looked back to Sōjun and Kiyuku. "If his sister ends up being anything like he is…"

Shunsui chuckled. "The Seireitei wouldn't know what hit it."

A throaty hum. "Quite."

In the silence that followed, both of them stared as Sōjun and Kiyuku gathered up the papers across the floor. Kiyuku hadn't changed from the girl of ten years ago, though perhaps ever so slightly more beautiful – slightly softer and more relaxed. There was a purple darkness around her eyes from the sleepless nights of motherhood and captaincy. A new rose-like tint across her cheeks and nose. Hair now long in a fiery cascade over her shoulders, she seemed more woman than girl – and with the sheen of pregnancy across her features, heavy with both tiredness and the pleasure of responsibility, she had come into her own more than ever.

Shunsui glanced to Byakuya out the corner of his eye and was unsurprised to find a twisting smile, restrained but distinct. Wholly beguiled, even if his son was as ridiculously impossible as his wife.

The three of them left Shunsui's office in a quiet breezing of movement. Where Kiyuku held the mass of Sōjun's inky paperwork to her chest, Byakuya held his son – and the Seireitei hadn't ever seen anything so perfect.

Indeed, as they receded down the corridor and away from Shunsui's door, he watched them in an elated state of satisfaction. The Blood War had been awful. The years before that had been complicated. But in all their noble impossibility, the Kuchikis made for a wonderful story of love accumulated. Clearly unaware of their being watched, Byakuya snaked an arm around Kiyuku's waist – tender, adoring. He leaned down as they walked, planted a kiss against the top of her head with tremendous affection.

And in a dismayed, bell-like voice, Sōjun cried, "No Daddy!That's _so _gross!"


End file.
